Measurement Navigation in a Multi-Modality Medical Imaging System

ABSTRACT

Systems and methods for multi-modality data processing are provided. Some embodiments are particularly directed to navigating sets of multi-modality medical data in a multi-modality processing system. In one embodiment, a method for navigating medical data in a medical processing system includes receiving a reference set of medical data by the medical processing system, where the medical data corresponds to a modality selected from the group consisting of: FFR, iFR, pressure, flow, IVUS, and OCT. The medical processing system also receives a navigation command. An enhancement and a subset of the reference set of medical data to enhance are identified based on the navigation command. The medical processing system performs the selected enhancement on the subset of data and the enhanced subset is displayed. The enhancement may include performing a single-axis zoom on the subset.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

The present application claims priority to and the benefit of U.S.Provisional Patent Application No. 61/745,986, filed Dec. 26, 2012,which is hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety.

TECHNICAL FIELD

The present disclosure relates generally to the field of medical devicesand, more particularly, to data collection, manipulation, enhancement,display, and annotation in a multi-modality medical system.

BACKGROUND

Innovations in diagnosing and verifying the level of success oftreatment of disease have migrated from external imaging processes tointernal diagnostic processes. In particular, diagnostic equipment andprocesses have been developed for diagnosing vasculature blockages andother vasculature disease by means of ultra-miniature sensors placedupon the distal end of a flexible elongate member such as a catheter, ora guide wire used for catheterization procedures. For example, knownmedical sensing techniques include angiography, intravascular ultrasound(IVUS), forward looking IVUS (FL-IVUS), fractional flow reserve (FFR)determination, a coronary flow reserve (CFR) determination, opticalcoherence tomography (OCT), trans-esophageal echocardiography, andimage-guided therapy. Each of these techniques may be better suited fordifferent diagnostic situations. To increase the chance of successfultreatment, health care facilities may have a multitude of imaging,treatment, diagnostic, and sensing modalities on hand in a catheter labduring a procedure. Recently, processing systems have been designed thatcollect medical data from a plurality of different imaging, treatment,diagnostic, and sensing tools and process the multi-modality medicaldata. Such multi-component systems often include modules that depend oneach other for information and system services.

While existing multi-modality medical processing systems have proveduseful, there remains a need for improvements in data handling andprocessing. For example, improvements to data identification have thepotential to enhance the ability to recognize, separate, index, andcatalog relevant data. Improved methods and interfaces for presentingdata collected across modalities in a unified, coherent fashion mayallow operators to draw accurate diagnostic conclusions. Furtherinterface improvements may allow operators to better refine, enhance,and measure data collected across modalities.

SUMMARY

Embodiments of the present disclosure provide an enhanced system andmethod for navigating sets of medical data in a multi-modalityprocessing system.

In some embodiments, a method for interpreting user input in a medicalprocessing system is provided. The method includes receiving a referenceset of medical data by the medical processing system, where the medicaldata corresponds to a first modality selected from the group ofmodalities consisting of: FFR, iFR, pressure, flow, IVUS, and OCT. Themedical processing system also receives a navigation command. Anenhancement and a subset of the reference set of data are identifiedbased on the navigation command. The medical processing system performsthe selected enhancement on the subset, and the enhanced subset isdisplayed. In one such embodiment, the navigation command designates anadditional set of medical data corresponding to a second modalitydifferent from the first modality. In another such embodiment, theperforming of the enhancement includes performing a single-axis zoom onthe subset.

In some embodiments, an apparatus is disclosed. The apparatus includes anon-transitory, computer-readable storage medium that stores a pluralityof instructions for execution by at least one computer processor,wherein the instructions are for: receiving a reference set of medicaldata corresponding to a first modality selected from the group ofmodalities consisting of: FFR, iFR, pressure, flow, IVUS, and OCT;receiving a navigation command; performing an enhancement on a subset ofthe reference set as specified by the navigation command; and providingthe enhanced subset for display. In one such embodiment, theinstructions for the receiving of the navigation command includeinstructions for: receiving a user input sequence indicating a firsttouch-based input concurrent with a second touch-based input; andtranslating the user input sequence into the navigation command. In theabove embodiment, the navigation command designates a first boundary ofthe subset corresponding to the first touch-based input and a secondboundary of the subset corresponding to the second touch-based input.

In some embodiments, a medical processing system is disclosed. Themedical processing system includes a medical data interface configuredto receive a reference set of medical data and a navigator engine. Thenavigator engine is configured to receive a navigation command from acontroller; identify an enhancement to perform based on the navigationcommand; identify a subset of the reference set of medical data toenhance based on the navigation command; perform the identifiedenhancement on the identified subset; and provide the enhanced subsetfor display. In one such embodiment, the navigator engine is furtherconfigured to provide an update for a display of the reference set ofmedical data based on the navigation command.

The systems and methods of the present disclosure perform on-demandenhancement and measurement of medical data in a multi-modalityenvironment. In some embodiments, an operator may select areas orinformation to enhance, creating larger, clearer, and more accurateviews. In some embodiments, an enhanced view is provided by applying asingle-axis zoom to a subset of the medical data. A single-axis zoomallows data to be rescaled along a first axis without necessarilyrescaling the data along a second. This is particularly useful for, butnot limited to, medical data sets that include data values plotted overa range of time or distance, where the data values are periodic. In suchdata, the peak-to-peak extremes along one axis might not varysubstantially as the scaling of the second axis is adjusted. Thesingle-axis zoom is merely one enhancement by which the embodiments ofthe present disclosure provide an improved interface for navigating andmanipulating data sets in a manner responsive to the nature of theunderlying data. Of course, it is understood that these advantages aremerely exemplary, and no particular advantage is required for anyparticular embodiment.

Additional aspects, features, and advantages of the present disclosurewill become apparent from the following detailed description.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is a schematic drawing depicting a medical system including amulti-modality processing system according to some embodiments of thepresent disclosure.

FIG. 2 is a functional block diagram of portions of the medical systemof FIG. 1, including a processing framework executing on embodiments ofthe multi-modality processing system.

FIG. 3 is a functional block diagram of portions of the medical systemof FIGS. 1 and 2, including a user interface component for labelingand/or indexing medical data according to some embodiments of themulti-modality processing system.

FIG. 4 is a diagram of an exemplary user interface for labelconstruction according to some embodiments of the multi-modalityprocessing system.

FIG. 5 is a flow diagram of a method of determining and applying a labelto medical data within a multi-modality processing system according tosome embodiments of the present disclosure.

FIG. 6 is a flow diagram of a method of handling an interrupt to alabeling procedure within a multi-modality processing system accordingto some embodiments of the present disclosure.

FIG. 7 is a functional block diagram of portions of the medical systemof FIGS. 1 and 2, including a user interface component for performingon-demand enhancement of medical data according to some embodiments ofthe multi-modality processing system.

FIG. 8 is a diagram of an exemplary user interface for on-demand dataenhancement according to some embodiments of the multi-modalityprocessing system.

FIG. 9 is a diagram of an exemplary user interface for data measurementaccording to some embodiments of the multi-modality processing system.

FIG. 10 is a flow diagram of a method of on-demand data enhancementwithin a multi-modality processing system according to some embodimentsof the present disclosure.

FIG. 11 is a flow diagram of a method of data measurement within amulti-modality processing system according to some embodiments of thepresent disclosure.

FIG. 12 is a functional block diagram of portions of the medical systemof FIGS. 1 and 2, including a user interface component fordistinguishing user input according to some embodiments of themulti-modality processing system.

FIG. 13 is a diagram of an exemplary user interface displaying agesture-based user input sequence according to some embodiments of themulti-modality processing system.

FIG. 14 is a diagram of an exemplary user interface displaying agesture-based user input sequence according to some embodiments of themulti-modality processing system.

FIG. 15 is a diagram of an exemplary user interface displaying atranslated instruction according to some embodiments of themulti-modality processing system.

FIG. 16 is a diagram of an exemplary user interface displaying agesture-based user input sequence according to some embodiments of themulti-modality processing system.

FIG. 17 is a diagram of an exemplary user interface displaying atranslated instruction according to some embodiments of themulti-modality processing system.

FIG. 18 is a flow diagram of a method of gesture recognition within amulti-modality processing system according to some embodiments of thepresent disclosure.

FIG. 19 is a functional block diagram of portions of the medical systemof FIGS. 1 and 2, including a user interface component for navigatingsets of medical data according to some embodiments of the multi-modalityprocessing system.

FIG. 20 is a diagram of an exemplary user interface for data navigationand enhancement according to some embodiments of the multi-modalityprocessing system.

FIG. 21 is a flow diagram of a method of navigating and enhancing setsof medical data within a multi-modality processing system according tosome embodiments of the present disclosure.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

For the purposes of promoting an understanding of the principles of thepresent disclosure, reference will now be made to the embodimentsillustrated in the drawings, and specific language will be used todescribe the same. It is nevertheless understood that no limitation tothe scope of the disclosure is intended. Any alterations and furthermodifications to the described devices, systems, and methods, and anyfurther application of the principles of the present disclosure arefully contemplated and included within the present disclosure as wouldnormally occur to one skilled in the art to which the disclosurerelates. In particular, it is fully contemplated that the features,components, and/or steps described with respect to one embodiment may becombined with the features, components, and/or steps described withrespect to other embodiments of the present disclosure. For the sake ofbrevity, however, the numerous iterations of these combinations will notbe described separately.

FIG. 1 is a schematic drawing depicting a medical system 100 including amulti-modality processing system 101 according to one embodiment of thepresent disclosure. In general, the medical system 100 provides forcoherent integration and consolidation of multiple forms of acquisitionand processing elements designed to be sensitive to a variety of methodsused to acquire and interpret human biological physiology andmorphological information and coordinate treatment of variousconditions. More specifically, in system 100, the multi-modalityprocessing system 101 is an integrated device for the acquisition,control, interpretation, and display of multi-modality medical sensingdata. In one embodiment, the processing system 101 is a computer systemwith the hardware and software to acquire, process, and displaymulti-modality medical data, but, in other embodiments, the processingsystem 101 may be any other type of computing system operable to processmedical data. In the embodiments in which processing system 101 is acomputer workstation, the system includes at least a processor such as amicrocontroller or a dedicated central processing unit (CPU), anon-transitory computer-readable storage medium such as a hard drive,random access memory (RAM), and/or compact disk read only memory(CD-ROM), a video controller such as a graphics processing unit (GPU),and a network communication device such as an Ethernet controller orwireless communication controller. In that regard, in some particularinstances the processing system 101 is programmed to execute stepsassociated with the data acquisition and analysis described herein.Accordingly, it is understood that any steps related to dataacquisition, data processing, instrument control, and/or otherprocessing or control aspects of the present disclosure may beimplemented by the processing system using corresponding instructionsstored on or in a non-transitory computer readable medium accessible bythe processing system. In some instances, the processing system 101 isportable (e.g., handheld, on a rolling cart, etc.). Further, it isunderstood that in some instances processing system 101 comprises aplurality of computing devices. In that regard, it is particularlyunderstood that the different processing and/or control aspects of thepresent disclosure may be implemented separately or within predefinedgroupings using a plurality of computing devices. Any divisions and/orcombinations of the processing and/or control aspects described belowacross multiple computing devices are within the scope of the presentdisclosure.

In the illustrated embodiment, the medical system 100 is deployed in acatheter lab 102 having a control room 104, with the processing system101 being located in the control room. In other embodiments, theprocessing system 101 may be located elsewhere, such as in the catheterlab 102, in a centralized area in a medical facility, or at an off-sitelocation (i.e., in the cloud). The catheter lab 102 includes a sterilefield generally encompassing a procedure area but its associated controlroom 104 may or may not be sterile depending on the requirements of aprocedure and/or health care facility. The catheter lab and control roommay be used to perform on a patient any number of medical sensingprocedures such as angiography, intravascular ultrasound (IVUS), virtualhistology (VH), forward looking IVUS (FL-IVUS), intravascularphotoacoustic (IVPA) imaging, a fractional flow reserve (FFR)determination, a coronary flow reserve (CFR) determination, opticalcoherence tomography (OCT), computed tomography, intracardiacechocardiography (ICE), forward-looking ICE (FLICE), intravascularpalpography, transesophageal ultrasound, or any other medical sensingmodalities known in the art. Further, the catheter lab and control roommay be used to perform one or more treatment or therapy procedures on apatient such as radiofrequency ablation (RFA), cryotherapy, atherectomyor any other medical treatment procedure known in the art. For example,in catheter lab 102 a patient 106 may be undergoing a multi-modalityprocedure either as a single procedure or in combination with one ormore sensing procedures. In any case, the catheter lab 102 includes aplurality of medical instruments including medical sensing devices thatmay collect medical sensing data in various different medical sensingmodalities from the patient 106.

In the illustrated embodiment of FIG. 1, instruments 108 and 110 aremedical sensing devices that may be utilized by a clinician to acquiremedical sensing data about the patient 106. In a particular instance,the device 108 collects medical sensing data in one modality and thedevice 110 collects medical sensing data in a different modality. Forinstance, the instruments may each collect one of pressure, flow(velocity), images (including images obtained using ultrasound (e.g.,IVUS), OCT, thermal, and/or other imaging techniques), temperature,and/or combinations thereof. The devices 108 and 110 may be any form ofdevice, instrument, or probe sized and shaped to be positioned within avessel, attached to an exterior of the patient, or scanned across apatient at a distance.

In the illustrated embodiment of FIG. 1, instrument 108 is an IVUScatheter 108 that may include one or more sensors such as a phased-arraytransducer to collect IVUS sensing data. In some embodiments, the IVUScatheter 108 may be capable of multi-modality sensing such as IVUS andIVPA sensing. Further, in the illustrated embodiment, the instrument 110is an OCT catheter 110 that may include one or more optical sensorsconfigured to collect OCT sensing data. In some instances, an IVUSpatient interface module (PIM) 112 and an OCT PIM 114 respectivelycouple the IVUS catheter 108 and OCT catheter 110 to the medical system100. In particular, the IVUS PIM 112 and the OCT PIM 114 are operable torespectively receive medical sensing data collected from the patient 106by the IVUS catheter 108 and OCT catheter 110 and are operable totransmit the received data to the processing system 101 in the controlroom 104. In one embodiment, the PIMs 112 and 114 include analog todigital (A/D) converters and transmit digital data to the processingsystem 101, however, in other embodiments, the PIMs transmit analog datato the processing system. In one embodiment, the IVUS PIM 112 and OCTPIM 114 transmit the medical sensing data over a Peripheral ComponentInterconnect Express (PCIe) data bus connection, but, in otherembodiments, they may transmit data over a USB connection, a Thunderboltconnection, a FireWire connection, or some other high-speed data busconnection. In other instances, the PIMs may be connected to theprocessing system 101 via wireless connections using IEEE 802.11 Wi-Fistandards, Ultra Wide-Band (UWB) standards, wireless FireWire, wirelessUSB, or another high-speed wireless networking standard.

Additionally, in the medical system 100, an electrocardiogram (ECG)device 116 is operable to transmit electrocardiogram signals or otherhemodynamic data from patient 106 to the processing system 101. In someembodiments, the processing system 101 may be operable to synchronizedata collected with the catheters 108 and 110 using ECG signals from theECG 116. Further, an angiogram system 117 is operable to collect x-ray,computed tomography (CT), or magnetic resonance images (MRI) of thepatient 106 and transmit them to the processing system 101. In oneembodiment, the angiogram system 117 may be communicatively coupled tothe processing system to the processing system 101 through an adapterdevice. Such an adaptor device may transform data from a proprietarythird-party format into a format usable by the processing system 101. Insome embodiments, the processing system 101 may be operable toco-register image data from angiogram system 117 (e.g., x-ray data, MRIdata, CT data, etc.) with sensing data from the IVUS and OCT catheters108 and 110. As one aspect of this, the co-registration may be performedto generate three-dimensional images with the sensing data.

A bedside controller 118 is also communicatively coupled to theprocessing system 101 and provides user control of the particularmedical modality (or modalities) being used to diagnose the patient 106.In the current embodiment, the bedside controller 118 is a touch screencontroller that provides user controls and diagnostic images on a singlesurface. In alternative embodiments, however, the bedside controller 118may include both a non-interactive display and separate controls such asphysical buttons and/or a joystick. In the integrated medical system100, the bedside controller 118 is operable to present workflow controloptions and patient image data in graphical user interfaces (GUIs). Aswill be described in greater detail in association with FIG. 2, thebedside controller 118 includes a user interface (UI) framework servicethrough which workflows associated with multiple modalities may execute.Thus, the bedside controller 118 is capable displaying workflows anddiagnostic images for multiple modalities allowing a clinician tocontrol the acquisition of multi-modality medical sensing data with asingle interface device.

A main controller 120 in the control room 104 is also communicativelycoupled to the processing system 101 and, as shown in FIG. 1, isadjacent to catheter lab 102. In the current embodiment, the maincontroller 120 is similar to the bedside controller 118 in that itincludes a touch screen and is operable to display multitude ofGUI-based workflows corresponding to different medical sensingmodalities via a UI framework service executing thereon. In someembodiments, the main controller 120 may be used to simultaneously carryout a different aspect of a procedure's workflow than the bedsidecontroller 118. In alternative embodiments, the main controller 120 mayinclude a non-interactive display and standalone controls such as amouse and keyboard.

The medical system 100 further includes a boom display 122communicatively coupled to the processing system 101. The boom display122 may include an array of monitors, each capable of displayingdifferent information associated with a medical sensing procedure. Forexample, during an IVUS procedure, one monitor in the boom display 122may display a tomographic view and one monitor may display a sagittalview.

Further, the multi-modality processing system 101 is communicativelycoupled to a data network 125. In the illustrated embodiment, the datanetwork 125 is a TCP/IP-based local area network (LAN); however, inother embodiments, it may utilize a different protocol such asSynchronous Optical Networking (SONET), or may be a wide area network(WAN). The processing system 101 may connect to various resources viathe network 125. For example, the processing system 101 may communicatewith a Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine (DICOM) system126, a Picture Archiving and Communication System (PACS) 127, and aHospital Information System (HIS) 128 through the network 125.Additionally, in some embodiments, a network console 130 may communicatewith the multi-modality processing system 101 via the network 125 toallow a doctor or other health professional to access the aspects of themedical system 100 remotely. For instance, a user of the network console130 may access patient medical data such as diagnostic images collectedby multi-modality processing system 101, or, in some embodiments, maymonitor or control one or more on-going procedures in the catheter lab102 in real-time. The network console 130 may be any sort of computingdevice with a network connection such as a PC, laptop, smartphone,tablet computer, or other such device located inside or outside of ahealth care facility.

Additionally, in the illustrated embodiment, medical sensing tools insystem 100 discussed above are shown as communicatively coupled to theprocessing system 101 via a wired connection such as a standard copperlink or a fiber optic link, but, in alternative embodiments, the toolsmay be connected to the processing system 101 via wireless connectionsusing IEEE 802.11 Wi-Fi standards, Ultra Wide-Band (UWB) standards,wireless FireWire, wireless USB, or another high-speed wirelessnetworking standard.

One of ordinary skill in the art would recognize that the medical system100 described above is simply an example embodiment of a system that isoperable to collect diagnostic data associated with a plurality ofmedical modalities. In alternative embodiments, different and/oradditional tools may be communicatively coupled to the processing system101 so as to contribute additional and/or different functionality to themedical system 100.

With reference now to FIG. 2, illustrated is a functional block diagramof portions of the medical system 100 of FIG. 1, including a processingframework 200 executing on an embodiment of the multi-modalityprocessing system 101. The processing framework 200 includes variousindependent and dependent executable components that control theoperation of the processing system 101, including the acquisition,processing, and display of multi-modality medical sensing data. Ingeneral, the processing framework 200 of processing system 101 ismodular and extensible. That is, the framework 200 is comprised ofindependent software and/or hardware components (or extensions)respectively associated with different functions and medical sensingmodalities. This modular design allows the framework to be extended toaccommodate additional medical sensing modalities and functionalitywithout impacting existing functionality or requiring changes to theunderlying architecture. Further, an internal messaging systemfacilitates independent data communication between modules within theframework. In one instance, the processing framework 200 may beimplemented as computer-executable instructions stored on anon-transitory computer-readable storage medium in the processing system10. In other instances the processing framework 200 may be a combinationof hardware and software modules executing within with the processingsystem 101.

Generally, in the embodiment shown in FIG. 2, processing framework 200includes a plurality of components that are configured to receivemedical sensing data from a plurality of medical sensing devices,process the data, and output the data as diagnostic images via the maincontroller 120, the bedside controller 118, or other graphical displaydevice. The framework 200 includes several system-level components thatmanage the core system functions of the processing system 101 and alsocoordinate the plurality of modality-specific components. For instance,the framework 200 includes a system controller 202 that coordinatesstartup and shutdown of the plurality of executable components of theprocessing framework 200, including hardware and software modulesrelated to acquisition and processing of patient diagnostic data. Thesystem controller 202 is also configured to monitor the state ofcomponents executing within the framework 202, for instance, todetermine if any components have unexpectedly stopped executing. Inaddition, the system controller 202 provides an interface through whichother framework components may obtain system configuration and statusinformation. Because the software framework 200 is modular, the systemcontroller 202 is independent of the components within the frameworkthat it manages so that errors and changes made to components do notaffect the execution or structure of the system controller.

As mentioned above, the framework 200 is configured such that variousextensions may be added and removed without system architecture changes.In certain embodiments, an extension executing within framework 200 mayinclude a plurality of executable components that together implement thefull functionality of the extension. In such embodiments, an extensionmay include an extension controller that is similar to the systemcontroller 202 that is operable to startup, shutdown, and monitor thevarious executable components associated with the extension. Forexample, upon system startup, the system controller 202 may start anextension controller corresponding to a medical modality, and then theextension controller may, in turn, start the executable componentsassociated with the modality. In one embodiment, extension controllersmay be unallocated until system controller 202 associates them with aspecific modality or other system task via parameters retrieved from aconfiguration mechanism, such as a configuration file.

The processing framework 200 further includes a workflow controllercomponent 204 that is generally configured to govern the execution ofthe executable components of the framework 202 during multi-modalitymedical sensing workflows. The workflow controller component 204 maygovern workflows executed by the processing framework 200 in variousdifferent manners.

The processing framework 200 further includes an event logging component206 that is configured to log messages received from various componentsof the processing framework. For instance, during system startup, thesystem controller 202 may send messages about the status of componentsbeing started to the event logging component 206 which, in turn, writesthe messages to a log file in a standardized format. Additionally, theprocessing framework 200 includes a resource arbiter component 208 thatis configured to manage the sharing of limited system resources betweenvarious executable components of the framework 202 during multi-modalitymedical sensing and/or treatment workflows. For example, during amulti-modality workflow, two or more components associated withdifferent modalities within the processing framework 202 may be vyingfor the same system resource such as a graphical display on the maincontroller 120. The resource arbiter component 208 may coordinatesharing of limited system resources in various manners such as through alock system, a queue system, or a hierarchical collision managementsystem.

In one embodiment, the system controller 202, workflow controllercomponent 204, event logging component 206, and resource arbitercomponent 208 may be implemented as processor-executable software storedon non-transitory, computer-readable storage media, but in alternativeembodiments, these components may be implemented as hardware componentssuch as special purpose microprocessors, Field Programmable Gate Arrays(FPGAs), microcontrollers, graphics processing units (GPU), digitalsignal processors (DSP). Alternatively, the components of the processingframework may be implemented as a combination of hardware and software.In certain embodiments in which executable components are implemented inFPGAs, the system controller 202 may be configured to dynamically alterthe programmable logic within the FPGAs to implement variousfunctionality needed at the time. As an aspect of this, the processingsystem 101 may include one or more unassigned FPGAs that may beallocated by the system controller during system startup. For instance,if upon startup of the processing system 101, the system controllerdetects an OCT PIM and catheter coupled thereto, the system controlleror an extension controller associated with OCT functionality maydynamically transform the programmable logic within one the unassignedFPGAs such that it includes functionality to receive and/or process OCTmedical data.

To facilitate intersystem communication between different hardware andsoftware components in the multi-modality processing system 101, theprocessing framework 200 further includes a message delivery component210. In one embodiment, the message delivery component 210 is configuredto receive messages from components within the framework 202, determinethe intended target of the messages, and deliver the messages in timelymanner (i.e., the message delivery component is an active participant inthe delivery of messages). In such an embodiment, message metadata maybe generated by the sending component that includes destinationinformation, payload data (e.g., modality type, patient data, etc.),priority information, timing information, or other such information. Inanother embodiment, message delivery component 210 may be configured toreceive messages from components within the framework 202, temporarilystore the messages, and make the messages available for retrieval byother components within the framework (i.e., the message deliverycomponent is a passive queue). In any case, the message deliverycomponent 210 facilitates communication between executable components inthe framework 200. For instance, the system controller 202 may utilizethe message delivery component 210 to inquire into the status ofcomponents starting up during a system startup sequence, and then, uponthe receiving status information, utilize the message delivery componentto transmit the status information to the event logging component 206 sothat it may be written to a log file. Similarly, the resource arbitercomponent 208 may utilize the message delivery component 210 to pass aresource token between components requesting access to limitedresources.

In one example embodiment in which the message delivery component 210 isa passive queue, components in the framework 200 may packetize incomingmedical sensing data into messages and then transmit the messages to aqueue on the message delivery component where they may be retrieved byother components such as image data processing components. Further, insome embodiments, the message delivery component 210 is operable to makereceived messages available in a First-In-First-Out (FIFO) manner,wherein messages that arrive on the queue first will be removed from thequeue first. In alternative embodiments, the message delivery component210 may make messages available in a different manner for instance by apriority value stored in a message header. In one embodiment, themessage delivery component 210 is implemented in random-access memory(RAM) in the processing system 101, but, in other embodiments, it may beimplemented in non-volatile RAM (NVRAM), secondary storage (e.g.,magnetic hard drives, flash memory, etc.), or network-based storage.Further, in one embodiment, messages stored on the message deliverycomponent 210 may be accessed by software and hardware modules inprocessing system 101 using Direct Memory Access (DMA).

The processing framework 202 further includes a number of additionalsystem components that provide core system functionality including asecurity component 212, a multi-modality case management (MMCM)component 214, and a database management component 216. In certainembodiments, the security component 212 is configured to provide varioussecurity services to the overall processing framework and to individualcomponents. For example, components implementing an IVUS dataacquisition workflow may utilize encryption application programminginterfaces (APIs) exposed by the security component 212 to encrypt IVUSdata before it is transmitted over a network connection. Further, thesecurity component 212 may provide other security services, such assystem-level authentication and authorization services to restrictaccess to the processing framework to credentialed users and also toprevent the execution of untrusted components within the extensibleframework. The multi-modality case management (MMCM) component 214 isconfigured to coordinate and consolidate diagnostic data associated witha plurality of medical modalities into a unified patient record that maybe more easily managed. Such a unified patient record may be moreefficiently stored in a database and may be more amenable to dataarchival and retrieval. In that regard, the database managementcomponent 216 is configured to present transparent database services tothe other components in the framework 200 such that database connectionand management details are hidden from the other components. Forexample, in certain embodiments, the database management component 216may expose an API that includes database storage and retrievalfunctionality to components of the framework 200. In other words, amedical sensing workflow component may be able to transmit diagnosticdata to a local and/or remote database such as a DICOM or PACS servervia the database component without being aware of database connectiondetails. In other embodiments, the database management component 216 maybe operable to perform additional and/or different database servicessuch as data formatting services that prepare diagnostic data fordatabase archival.

As mentioned above, the processing framework 200 of the multi-modalityprocessing system 101 is operable to receive and process medical dataassociated with a plurality of modalities. In that regard, theprocessing framework 200 includes a plurality of modular acquisitioncomponents and workflow components that are respectively associated withdifferent medical sensing and diagnostic modalities. For instance, asshown in the illustrated embodiment of FIG. 2, the processing framework200 includes an IVUS acquisition component 220 and an IVUS workflowcomponent 222 that are respectively configured to receive and processIVUS medical sensing data from the IVUS PIM 112. In accordance with themodular and extensible nature of the processing framework 200, anynumber of additional acquisition and workflow components may beindependently added to the framework as denoted by the modality “N”acquisition component 224 and the modality “N” workflow component 226that acquire and process data from a modality “N” PIM 228. For example,in certain embodiments, the processing system 101 may be communicativelycoupled to the OCT PIM 114, the ECG system 116, a fractional flowreserve (FFR) PIM, a FLIVUS PIM, and an ICE PIM. In other embodiments,additional and/or different medical sensing, treatment, or diagnosticdevices may be coupled to the processing system 101 via additionaland/or different data communication connections known in the art. Insuch a scenario, in addition to the IVUS acquisition module 220, theprocessing framework 200 may include an FFR acquisition component toreceive FFR data from an FFR PIM, a FLIVUS acquisition component toreceive FLIVUS data from a FLIVUS PIM, an ICE acquisition component toreceive ICE data from an ICE PIM, and an OCT acquisition component isoperable to receive OCT data from an OCT PIM. In this context, medicaldata communicated between the executable components of the processingframework 200 and the communicatively coupled medical devices (e.g.,PIMs, catheters, etc.) may include data collected by sensors, controlsignals, power levels, device feedback, and other medical data relatedto a sensing, treatment, or diagnostic procedure. Further, in certainembodiments, patient treatment devices may be communicatively coupled tothe processing system 101 such as devices associated with radiofrequencyablation (RFA), cryotherapy, or atherectomy and any PIMs or othercontrol equipment associated with such treatment procedures. In such anembodiment, the modality “N” acquisition component 224 and the modality“N” workflow component 226 may be configured to communicate with andcontrol the treatment devices such as by relaying control signals,relaying power levels, receiving device feedback, and receiving datacollected by sensors disposed on the treatment devices.

In one embodiment, once the acquisition components 220 and 224 havereceived data from connected medical sensing devices, the componentspacketize the data into messages to facilitate intersystemcommunication. Specifically, the components may be operable to create aplurality of messages from an incoming digital data stream, where eachmessage contains a portion of the digitized medical sensing data and aheader. The message header contains metadata associated with the medicalsensing data contained within the message. Further, in some embodiments,the acquisition components 220 and 224 may be operable to manipulate thedigitized medical sensing data in some way before it is transmitted toother portions of the framework 200. For example, the acquisitioncomponents may compress the sensing data to make intersystemcommunication more efficient, or normalize, scale or otherwise filterthe data to aid later processing of the data. In some embodiments, thismanipulation may be modality-specific. For example, the IVUS acquisitioncomponent 220 may identify and discard redundant IVUS data before it ispassed on to save processing time in subsequent steps. The acquisitioncomponents 220 and 224 may additionally perform a number of tasksrelated to the acquisition of data including responding to interruptsgenerated by data buses (e.g., PCIe, USB), detecting which medicalsensing devices are connected to processing system 101, retrievinginformation about connected medical sensing devices, storing sensingdevice-specific data, and allocating resources to the data buses. Asmentioned above, the data acquisition components are independent fromeach other and may be installed or removed without disrupting dataacquisition by other components. Additionally, acquisition componentsare independent of underlying data bus software layers (for example,through the use of APIs) and thus may be created by third parties tofacilitate acquisition of data from third party medical sensing devices.

The workflow components of the processing framework, such as the IVUSworkflow component 222, receive unprocessed medical sensing and/ordiagnostic data from respective acquisition components via the messagedelivery component 210. In general, the workflow components areconfigured to control the acquisition of medical sensing data such as bystarting and stopping data collection at calculated times, displayingacquired and processed patient data, and facilitating the analysis ofacquired patient data by a clinician. As an aspect of this, the workflowcomponents are operable to transform unprocessed medical data gatheredfrom a patient into diagnostic images or other data formats that enablea clinician to evaluate a patient's condition. For example, an IVUSworkflow component 222 may interpret IVUS data received from the IVUSPIM 112 and convert the data into human-readable IVUS images. In oneembodiment, a software stack within the framework may expose a set ofAPIs with which the workflow component 222 and other workflow componentsin the framework may call to access system resources such as thecomputational resources, the message delivery component 210, andcommunication resources. After processing acquired data, themodality-centric workflow components may transmit one or more messagescontaining the processed data to other components within the framework200 via the message delivery component 210. In some embodiments, beforesending such messages, the components may insert a flag in the headerindicating that the message contains processed data. Additionally, insome embodiments, after processing medical sensing data, the componentsmay utilize the database management component 216 to transmit theprocessed data to archival systems such as a locally attached massstorage device or the network-based PACS server 127. In accordance withthe modular architecture of the processing framework 200, the workflowcomponents 222 and 226 are independent of each other and may beinstalled or removed without disrupting other components, and may bewritten by third parties. Further, due to their independence, they maybe are operable to process signaling and imaging data from multiplemedical sensing devices concurrently.

The processing framework 200 additionally includes a co-registrationinterface component 230 and a co-registration workflow component 232that are configured to acquire and process data from any number of datacollection tools 234 and co-register the acquired data with dataacquired by one of the other acquisition components within theframework. In more detail, the co-registration interface component 230may be operable to communicatively interface with medical dataacquisition tools associated with any number of modalities, such as theECG device 116 or the angiography system 117 of FIG. 1. In certainembodiments, the interface component 230 may be operable to standardizeand/or transform incoming modality data such that it may beco-registered with other sensing data acquired by the processing system101. As medical data is being acquired by the co-registration interfacecomponent 230, the co-registration workflow component 232 is configuredto facilitate the co-registration of data from different modalities suchas by spatially or temporally synchronizing data collection amongmedical sensing devices, aligning two or more acquired data sets basedon spatial or temporal registration markers, and generatingco-registered diagnostic images or other human-readable data that enablea clinician to evaluate a patient's condition. Further, in otherembodiments, the co-registration workflow component 232 may be operableto spatially co-register catheter-gathered data in a two-dimensional(2-D) or three-dimensional (3-D) space using previously-generated 2-Dimages or 3-D models. For example, a catheter-based sensing tool mayinclude fiducials that are tracked to generate position data during asensing procedure, and the co-registration workflow component 232 mayregister this position data against previously acquired MRI data. Stillfurther, the co-registration workflow component 232 may facilitateco-registration of multi-modality data acquired by native acquisitioncomponents within the framework 200 such as the IVUS acquisitioncomponent 220 and modality “N” acquisition component 224. Additionally,in some embodiments, a real-time clock may be integrated into theco-registration workflow component 232. U.S. Provisional PatentApplication No. 61/473,591, entitled “DISTRIBUTED MEDICAL SENSING SYSTEMAND METHOD”, discloses temporally synchronizing medical sensing datacollection in more detail and is hereby incorporated by reference in itsentirety.

As discussed above in association with FIG. 1, a clinician utilizing theprocessing system 101 may control workflows and view diagnostic imagesthrough the main controller 120 and the bedside controller 118. The maincontroller 120 and the bedside controller 118 respectively include userinterface (UI) framework services 240 and 242 that support a pluralityof user interface (UI) extensions (or components). In general, the UIextensions supported by the UI framework services 240 and 242respectively correspond to medical sensing modalities and are operableto render a user interface for control of the associated acquisitionworkflow and display of processed sensing data. Similar to theprocessing framework 200, the UI frameworks 240 and 242 are extensiblein that they support UI extensions that are independent of one another.That is, its modular design allows the UI frameworks 240 and 242 to beextended to accommodate additional medical sensing modality userinterfaces without impacting existing user interfaces or requiringchanges to the underlying UI architectures. In the illustratedembodiment, the main controller 120 includes a system UI extension 244that renders a user interface containing core system controls andconfiguration options. For example, a clinician may startup, shutdown orotherwise manage the processing system 101 using the user interfacerendered by the system UI extension 244. In one embodiment, thecomponents of the main controller 120 may be considered part of theprocessing framework 200. The IVUS UI extensions 246 and 248 render userinterfaces for the main controller 120 and bedside controller 118,respectively. For example, the IVUS UI extensions 246 and 248 may renderand display the touch screen buttons used to control an IVUS workflowand also render and display the IVUS diagnostic images created by theIVUS workflow component 222. Similarly, the modality “N” UI extensions250 and 252 render controls and images associated with a modality “N”workflow.

In one embodiment, the UI framework services 240 and 242 may expose APIswith which the UI extensions may call to access system resources such asa look-and-feel toolbox and error handling resources. Look-and-feeltoolbox APIs enable the UI extensions to present a standardized userinterface with common buttons, parallel workflow formats, and datapresentation schemes for different modality workflows. In this manner,clinicians may more easily transition between acquisition modalitieswithout additional user interface training. Further, co-registration UIextensions may present and/or combine processed image or signaling datafrom multiple modalities. For instance, a UI extension may display anelectrocardiogram (ECG) wave adjacent to IVUS imaging data or maydisplay an IVUS image overlaid with borders that were previously drawnon an OCT image. Further, in some embodiments, the UI framework services240 and 242 may include a multi-tasking framework to coordinateconcurrently executing UI extensions. For instance, in the event theprocessing system 101 is simultaneously acquiring data associated withmore than one modality, the UI framework services 240 and 242 maypresent the user with a modality selector screen on which a desired userinterface may be selected.

The UI framework service 240 communicates with the components of theprocessing framework 200 via the message delivery component 210. Asshown in the illustrated embodiment of FIG. 2, the bedside controller118 may be communicatively coupled to the processing framework 200 via anetwork connection 254. The network connection 254 may be any type ofwired of wireless network connection such as an Ethernet connection orIEEE 802.11 Wi-Fi connection. Alternatively, one or both of the main andbedside controllers 120 and 118 may communicate with the processingframework 200 via a local bus connection such as a (PCIe) data busconnection, a USB connection, a Thunderbolt connection, a FireWireconnection, or some other high-speed data bus connection. Further, inthe illustrated embodiment of FIG. 2, the bedside controller includes amessage delivery component 256 that is configured to facilitatemessage-based communication between the UI extensions in the bedsidecontroller 118 and the components in the processing framework 200. Incertain embodiments, the message delivery component 256 may extractdiagnostic image data from network communication packets as they arriveover the network connection 254.

The processing framework 200 includes additional components that allow aclinician to access and/or control workflows executing in themulti-modality processing system 101. For example, the framework 200includes a remote access component 260 that communicatively couples thenetwork console 130 (FIG. 1) to the processing framework 200. In oneembodiment, the remote access component 260 is operable to exportcontrol functionality of the processing system 101 to the networkconsole 130, so that the network console may present workflow controlfunctions in its user interface. In certain embodiments, the remoteaccess component 260 may receive workflow commands from the networkconsole 130 and forward them to a remote access workflow component 262.The remote access workflow component 262 may dictate the set of commandsand diagnostic data to which a remote user may access through thenetwork console 130. Further, the legacy control component 264 andlegacy control workflow component 266 provide some level of access tomodality workflow control and data to users of legacy consoles 268 (e.g.button consoles, mice, keyboards, standalone monitors).

In one embodiment, the core system components of the processingframework 200 and the additional components such as the modality-relatedcomponents may be implemented as processor-executable software stored onnon-transitory, computer-readable storage media, but in alternativeembodiments, these components may be implemented as hardware componentssuch as special purpose microprocessors, Field Programmable Gate Arrays(FPGAs), microcontrollers, graphics processing units (GPU), digitalsignal processors (DSP). Alternatively, the components of the processingframework may be implemented as a combination of hardware and software.

One of ordinary skill in the art will recognize that the processingframework 200 of FIG. 2 is simply an example embodiment and, inalternative embodiments, the framework may include different and/oradditional components configured to carry out various medical sensingworkflows. For instance, the processing framework 200 may furtherinclude executable components configured for the evaluation of astenosis of a human blood vessel or configured to facilitate control ofcomputer-assisted surgery or remotely-controlled surgery.

Referring now to FIG. 3, illustrated is a functional block diagram ofportions of the medical system of FIGS. 1 and 2, including a userinterface component 300 for labeling and/or indexing medical dataaccording to some embodiments of the multi-modality processing system100. In various embodiments, the user interface component 300 presents anested list of indexes or labels used to identify medical data. Theamount of data collected during a treatment or therapy can besubstantial. The addition of multiple modalities only exacerbates theproblem. Labeling and/or indexing relevant portions of the datasetfacilitates review, searching, auditing, statistical analysis, and otheruses of the data.

The user interface component 300 includes a label builder module 302that constructs a relevant label based on user input and applies thelabel to a portion of medical data. The label builder module 302contains one or more of a label builder engine 306, a medical datainterface 308, a database of label sets 310, and a procedure database312. The procedure database 312 contains information relevant to theprocedure being performed such as an operative course of a procedure ortreatment, a patient identification, patient vital statistics, apatient's medical history, and/or a status of the processing system 100.In some embodiments, the label set database 310 and/or the proceduredatabase 312 is external to the label builder module 302, and thus themodule 302 includes a database interface coupled to the respectivedatabase 310 or 312.

The user interface component also includes a controller 304, whichitself includes a user input device 314 and a user display device 316.Examples of suitable user input devices 314 include, but are in no waylimited to, keyboards, keypads, mice, trackballs, digital pens,touch-based interfaces, gesture-based interfaces, verbal andspeech-recognition interfaces, adaptive interfaces, cameras,motion-sensing interfaces, and other user input devices known to one ofskill in the art.

Portions of the user interface component 300 may be implemented, inwhole or in part, as processor-executable software stored onnon-transitory, computer-readable storage media and/or as hardwarecomponents such as special purpose microprocessors, FPGAs,microcontrollers, graphics processing units, and DSPs. In someembodiments, portions of the user interface component 300 areincorporated into components of the multi-modality processing system 100described with reference to FIGS. 1 and 2. For example, in some suchembodiments, controller 304 is a component of a bedside controller 118,a main controller 120, a boom display 122, and/or a network console 130described with reference to FIG. 1. As a further example, in some suchembodiments, the label builder module 302 is incorporated into a UIframework service 240 of a main controller 120, a UI framework service242 of a bedside controller 118, and/or a UI extension such as IVUS UIextension 246 or IVUS UI extension 248 described with reference to FIG.2. In other embodiments, the label builder module 302 is a separate anddistinct component of the multi-modality processing system 100.

The label builder module 302 constructs a label to be applied to a unitof medical data such as a frame of an IVUS image, a segment of an OCTtomogram, a range of an FFR measurement, or other portion of a data set.In some embodiments, the label builder module 302 receives the medicaldata to be labeled via the medical data interface 308. In otherembodiments, the label builder module 302 receives an identifiercorresponding to the medical data either in addition to or as asubstitute for receiving the medical data itself. For example, in onesuch embodiment, other components of the multi-modality processingsystem 100 separate from the label builder module 302 display the dataon the user display device 316 without providing it to the label buildermodule 302. In another such embodiment, the medical data is distributedacross a network.

The data to be labeled may be any suitable medical data collected by oneor more of any modality implemented by the multi-modality processingsystem. In some embodiments, the medical data is unprocessed medicaldata and may be provided by a modality acquisition component (e.g., IVUSacquisition component 220 of FIG. 2, a forward-looking IVUS acquisitioncomponent, an FFR acquisition component, a CFR acquisition component, anOCT acquisition component, and/or a transesophageal echocardiographyacquisition component). In some embodiments, the medical data isprocessed medical data and may be provided by a workflow component(e.g., IVUS workflow component 222 of FIG. 2, a forward-looking IVUSworkflow component, an FFR workflow component, a CFR workflow component,an OCT workflow component, and/or a transesophageal echocardiographyworkflow component). In some embodiments, the medical data has beenaggregated from multiple modalities and is provided by an MMCM workflowcomponent 214 of FIG. 2.

To assemble a label, in some embodiments, the label builder engine 306presents sets of possible labels, categorically arranged, on the userdisplay device 316 for an operator to select. In various exemplaryembodiments, sets of labels are derived from treatment or procedurenames, locations within the body, anatomical structures such as vesselnames or vessel segments, patient data, procedure data, and/or any othersuitable identifier. In determining a set of labels to present, thelabel builder engine 306 may query the procedure database 312 todetermine information pertaining to the current operating environmentand/or the label set database 310 to determine labels that pertain to anoperating environment. In one such embodiment, the label builder enginesqueries the procedure database 312 to determine an aspect of the currentoperating environment and subsequently queries the label set database310 based on the aspect to determine pertinent labels. In someembodiments, the label builder engine 306 selects a set of labels basedon the medical data or other corresponding medical data collected byanother modality. As an example, a set of labels for IVUS data mayinclude a label corresponding to blood pressure or pulse as measured byanother sensor modality connected to the system 100. In that regard,data across modalities are coordinated using times stamps or othersuitable techniques by the multi-modality processing system.

The label builder engine 306 presents the set of labels to the systemoperator via the user display device 316 of the controller 304. Usingthe user input device 314, the operator selects an appropriate labelfrom the set. In some embodiments, the operator may supply analternative label not contained in the set either in addition to or as asubstitute for selecting a label from the set. The user selection isreceived at the label builder engine 306, and the corresponding label isstored. The label builder engine 306 may perform multiple iterations ofassembling a set of labels, presenting the set, and receiving aselection. In some embodiments, a selected label determines thecomposition of subsequent label sets. In such embodiments, any iterationmay depend on a response received in any previous iteration. Forexample, in one such embodiment, a parent set of labels is derived fromvessel names and includes “LAD” (corresponding to “left anteriordescending artery”), “LCX” (corresponding to “left circumflex artery”),and “RCA” (corresponding to “right coronary artery”). In the example,the operator selects “RCA” and the response is received at the labelbuilder engine 306. Based on this response, the label builder engine 306assembles a dependent set of labels based on the relevant segments ofthe corresponding right coronary artery. The label builder engine 306then presents the dependent set of labels via the user display device316.

In some embodiments, the label builder engine 306 supports multiplebranching dependencies. In such embodiments, a label set may depend onany or none of the parent sets, and iterations may be added or removedbased on previous responses.

Additionally, the label builder engine 306 may at any time receive arequest via the user input device 314 to modify a previous response andrepeat any dependent iterations. The label builder engine 306 may repeatthe dependent iterations out of order and/or without repeating otherintervening iterations. For example, a modification to a responserelating to a second set of labels may cause a change to a fourth set oflabels without necessarily causing a change to a first or third set oflabels and thus without necessarily causing the first or third set oflabels to be reiterated.

In embodiments that incorporate dependent sets of labels, a selectedlabel is stored and a dependent set of labels is generated by the labelbuilder engine 306. The generation of subsequent label sets includingdependent sets may be substantially similar to that of the parent set.In that regard, subsequent sets may be populated by querying the labelset database 310 and/or the procedure database 312. Subsequent sets oflabels may be derived from treatment or procedure names, locationswithin the body, anatomical structures such as vessel names or vesselsegments, patient data, procedure data, and/or any other suitableidentifier. In some embodiments, the label builder engine 306 selects asubsequent set of labels based on the medical data or othercorresponding medical data collected by another modality.

Similar to how subsequent sets may depend on labels selected fromprevious sets, in some embodiments, the label builder engine 306 mayselect and populate a set based on a label applied to another medicaldata set. For example, a first dataset may be labeled “POST” indicatingthat the data was collected after a certain point of a procedure. Fromthis label, the label builder engine 306 may select label sets forsubsequent data sets with the assumption that they were also collectedafter the critical point and are thus “POST.”

In some embodiments, the label builder engine 306 preselects a labelfrom a given set as a default selection. In such embodiments, theoperator may be given the opportunity to override the preselected label.As an example, the label builder engine 306 may preselect the currenttime from a time-related label set. The operator may then have theability to select an alternate time. Pre-selection may be based onsystem defaults, an operative course of a treatment, patientinformation, user preference, and/or other criteria.

When the final iteration is complete, the label builder engine 306builds a final label based on the responses received. The final labelmay also include other relevant information obtained from sources otherthan user responses. This information may be retrieved from theprocedure database 312 as well as from other sources and may includepatient name or other patient identifier, patient statistics, operatorname, a facility identifier, additional annotations, and/or otherpertinent information. In some embodiments, the label includes databased on medical data provided by another modality of the system 100.For example, a label for imaging data may include a correspondingpatient pulse rate or blood pressure.

The label builder engine 306 applies the final label to the medicaldata. In some embodiments, the label builder engine 306 modifies themedical data to add the label and returns the updated data for storagevia the medical data interface 308. In other embodiments, the labelbuilder engine 306 provides the label separate from and withoutmodifying the corresponding medical data.

FIG. 4 is a diagram of an exemplary user interface 400 for labelconstruction according to some embodiments of the multi-modalityprocessing system 100. The user interface 400 may be displayed on a userdisplay such as the user display 316 described with reference to FIG. 3.The user interface 400 represents one possible arrangement fordisplaying the information presented by the multi-modality processingsystem 100 and more specifically the label builder module 302 of thesystem. One skilled in the art will recognize that alternatearrangements are both contemplated and provided for.

In the illustrated embodiment, the user interface 400 includes fourlabel set panes (panes 402 a, 402 b, 402 c, and 402 d), although otherembodiments incorporate any number of panes. In some embodiments, thenumber of panes increases or decreases based on the labels selected.Each label set pane displays an associated label set, for example, labelset 404, and provides both an area to select a label from the label setand an identifier 406 of the currently selected label. The interface 400may also include a current selection pane 408 that displays one or morecurrently selected labels. In some embodiments, the current selectionpane 408 allows an operator to select a label. For example, the pane 408may allow typing or other use input. The user interface 400 may alsocontain one or more command elements for sending instructions to thelabel builder module 302. Exemplary instruction include select label,apply final label (i.e., OK button 410), clear currently selected labels(i.e., CLEAR button 412), and abort without applying a label (i.e.,CANCEL button 414).

FIG. 5 is a flow diagram of a method 500 of determining and applying alabel to medical data within a multi-modality processing system 100according to some embodiments of the present disclosure. It isunderstood that additional steps can be provided before, during, andafter the steps of method 500, and some of the steps described can bereplaced or eliminated for other embodiments of the method.

In block 502, the medical data to be labeled is received by a module ofthe system 100 such as a label builder module 302 described withreference to FIG. 3. In some embodiments, an identifier corresponding tothe medical data is received either in addition to or as a substitutefor receiving the medical data itself. The identifier of the medicaldata may include some or all of the medical data and/or may include apointer to data located elsewhere on the system or distributed across anetwork. In block 504, the module selects and populates a first set oflabels. In some embodiments, this includes querying one or moredatabases such as a label set database 310 or a procedure database 312.In various exemplary embodiments, sets of labels are derived, in part orin whole, from treatment or procedure names, locations within the body,anatomical structures such as vessel names or vessel segments, patientdata, procedure data, and/or any other suitable identifier. The sets oflabels may also be derived, in part or in whole, from informationpertaining to patient information, treatment regimen, statisticalinformation, and any other contextual information. In some embodiments,the module selects a set of labels based on the medical data beinglabeled or other corresponding medical data collected by anothermodality. As an example, a set of labels for IVUS data may include alabel corresponding to blood pressure or pulse as measured by anothersensor modality connected to the system 100.

In block 506, the module presents the first set of labels at a displaydevice such as the user display device 316 described with reference toFIG. 3. In block 508, the module receives a first label selection basedon the first set of labels. The response may be entered via an inputdevice such as the user input device 314 described with reference toFIG. 3. In some embodiments, the operator may supply an alternativelabel not contained in the first set either in addition to or as asubstitute for selecting a label from the set. The operator-suppliedlabel may be stored for future use such as reporting and inclusion infuture label sets. The module receives the selection, and the selectedlabel may be stored in the system 100. In block 510, a second set oflabels may be generated by the label builder engine. The composition ofsubsequent sets, including the second set, may be substantially similarto that of the first set. In that regard, subsequent sets may beretrieved from a database and may be derived from treatment or procedurenames, locations within the body, anatomical structures such as vesselnames or vessel segments, patient data, procedure data, and/or any othersuitable identifier. Subsequent sets may also be populated based oncontextual information, which in turn, may be retrieve from a database.In some embodiments, the module selects a subsequent set of labels basedon the medical data or other corresponding medical data collected byanother modality.

Referring still to block 510, the module may also select and populatesubsequent label sets (e.g., the second set) based on previouslyselected labels for the medical data. For example, in one suchembodiment, the first set of labels is derived from vessel names andincludes “LAD” (corresponding to “left anterior descending artery”),“LCX” (corresponding to “left circumflex artery”), and “RCA”(corresponding to “right coronary artery”). In the example, the operatorselects “RCA” and the response is received. Based on this response, thesecond set of labels is populated based on the relevant segments of thecorresponding right coronary artery.

The module may also select the second set based on labels previouslyselected for or applied to another medical data set. For example, aprevious data set may have been labeled with a patient's name. In someembodiments, the module populates a second set to include the patient'sname based on the label applied to the previous data.

In some embodiments, in block 512, a particular label or value from thesecond set of labels is preselected. The particular label may bepreselected based on any suitable criteria such as a system default, acustomary flow of a treatment, patient information, and/or othercriteria. As an example, in some embodiments, a time stamp from dataacquisition is preselected from a time-related label set.

In block 514, the second set of labels is presented at the displaydevice. In block 516, the module receives a second label selection froma user based on the second set of labels. The response may be enteredvia the input device such as the user input device 314 described withreference to FIG. 3. In some embodiments, the second label selectionreplaces a preselected label or value.

In block 518, it is determined whether the label query is complete. Ifnot, subsequent iterations of assembling a set of labels, presenting theset, and receiving a selection may be performed in block 520. Anyiteration may depend on a response received in any previous iteration.Of course, any iteration may be independent of any or all previousiterations. At any time, a request may be received via the input deviceto modify a previous response and repeat any dependent iteration.Dependent iterations may be performed out of order and/or withoutrepeating other intervening iterations. For example, a modification to aresponse relating to a second set of labels may cause a change to afourth set of labels without necessarily causing a change to a first orthird set of labels and thus without necessarily causing the first orthird set of labels to be reiterated.

When the label query is complete, in block 522, the final label isassembled from the responses received. The final label may also includeother relevant information obtained from sources other than userresponses such as patient name or other patient identifier, patientstatistics, operator name, a facility identifier, additionalannotations, and/or other pertinent information. In some embodiments,the label includes data based on medical data provided by anothermodality. For example, a label for imaging data may include acorresponding patient pulse rate or blood pressure.

In block 524, the final label is applied to the medical data. In someembodiments, the medical data is modified to add the label and theupdated data is then stored and/or displayed. In other embodiments, thelabel is separate from the corresponding medical data, and nomodification of the data is performed.

The systems and methods of the present disclosure provide a mechanismfor selecting and assigning labels to medical data across modalities.Assigning labels to medical data may greatly improve data handlingincluding searching and retrieval. In some embodiments, the assignedlabels determine which portions of the medical data are stored,retained, and/or archived. For example, in an embodiment, unlabeled datais discarded after a certain time has elapsed, while labeled data isretained. This allows important data to be preserved and avoids storingredundant data. In another embodiment, labeled data is uploaded toanother data processing system for further analysis. In anotherembodiment, a data processing system requests medical data labeled withone or more key terms. To further facilitate retrieval, in someembodiments, a searchable index of medical data is created from theassigned labels for fast and effective retrieval. By providing lists ofpossible labels, some embodiments encourage the use of standardizedterms while still allowing operators to select terms outside of the listto cover special cases. To avoid overwhelming operators, someembodiments refine the list according to previous selections, procedureinformation, patient information, other medical data, and/or othercriteria. This allows operators to see the most relevant labels, andthereby improves labeling speed and accuracy. Of course, it isunderstood that these advantages are merely exemplary, and no particularadvantage is required for any particular embodiment.

FIG. 6 is a flow diagram of a method 600 of handling an interrupt to alabeling procedure within a multi-modality processing system 100according to some embodiments of the present disclosure. In someembodiments, the labeling procedure supports interrupt commands such assuspend or halt. A user may suspend the labeling procedure while othertasks are performed. For example, a window used to display label setsmay be minimized or hidden while underlying windows are viewed. Inanother example, a modality connected to the processing system 100issues an interrupt as part of an error procedure that causes labelingto be suspended. When the system or user is ready to continue, thelabeling procedure may be resumed from a previous state.

In block 602, a request is received to suspend the labeling task. Therequest may be issued by a user, by a component of the multi-modalitysystem 100, by an external device or system including modalities coupledto the multi-modality system 100 and computing devices networked systemsto the system 100, or by any other suitable source. In some embodiments,it is determined whether the source of the request has permission tosuspend the labeling task. In block 604, the current state of thelabeling task is saved. In block 606, the labeling task is halted. Inblock 608, it is determined whether a resume command has been received.If not, the labeling task remains halted in block 606. When the resumerequest is received, the labeling task is resumed in block 610. Byproviding a mechanism for a safe interruption of the labeling task, themethod allows operators to attend to higher-priority matters withoutloss of data.

Referring now to FIG. 7, illustrated is a functional block diagram ofportions of the medical system of FIGS. 1 and 2, including a userinterface component 700 for performing on-demand enhancement of medicaldata according to some embodiments of the multi-modality processingsystem 100. Examples of enhancements include zooming, adjustingbrightness, adjusting opacity, adjusting a color mask, increasing anddecreasing resolution, resampling, interpolating, adjusting gain, andmeasuring including measuring distance, area, volume, and rate ofchange. Further enhancements combine data collected by multiplemodalities and refine processing parameters applied to the medical data.Yet further exemplary enhancements perform 3d reconstruction.Enhancements may also include labeling, highlighting, or annotating aportion of the medical data, such as the labeling described with respectto FIGS. 3-6. Other enhancements are contemplated and provided for. Suchmulti-modality enhancements assist operators in navigating through thewealth of data and in drawing meaningful and accurate diagnosticcorrelations. In some embodiments, the user interface component 700performs measurement determinations based on received location markers.The interface component 700 allows operators to specify points tohighlight, mark, and/or measure. This gives the operator a context forthe images and data on display, linking the patient to the data.

The user interface component 700 includes a measurement zoom module 702coupled to a controller 704 or operator interface. The measurement zoommodule 702 contains one or more of a measurement zoom engine 706, amemory device for storing a transaction record 708, a modality feedbackinterface 710, and a medical data interface 712. The controller 704includes a user input device 714 and one or more user display devices(illustrated as a first user display device 716 and a second userdisplay device 718). The user input device 714 may be substantiallysimilar to the user input device 314 described with respect to FIG. 3.In that regard, examples of suitable user input devices 714 include, butare in no way limited to, keyboards, keypads, mice, trackballs, digitalpens, touch-based interfaces, gesture-based interfaces, verbal andspeech-recognition interfaces, adaptive interfaces, cameras,motion-sensing interfaces, and other user input devices known to one ofskill in the art.

Portions of the user interface component 700 may be implemented, inwhole or in part, as processor-executable software stored onnon-transitory, computer-readable storage media and/or as hardwarecomponents such as special purpose microprocessors, FPGAs,microcontrollers, graphics processing units, and DSPs. In someembodiments, portions of the user interface component 700 areincorporated into components of the multi-modality processing system 100described with reference to FIGS. 1 and 2. For example, in some suchembodiments, controller 704 is a component of a bedside controller 118,a main controller 120, a boom display 122, and/or a network console 130described with reference to FIG. 1. As a further example, in some suchembodiments, the measurement zoom module 702 is incorporated into a UIframework service 240 of a main controller 120, a UI framework service242 of a bedside controller 118, and/or a UI extension such as IVUS UIextension 246 or IVUS UI extension 248 described with reference to FIG.2. In other embodiments, the measurement zoom module 702 is a separateand distinct component of the multi-modality processing system 100.

In some embodiments, the measurement zoom module 702 performs anon-demand enhancement of medical data. Examples of suitable enhancementsinclude zooming, adjusting brightness, adjusting opacity, adjusting acolor mask, increasing and decreasing resolution, resampling,interpolating, adjusting gain, and measuring including measuringdistance, area, volume, and rate of change. Enhancements may alsoinclude labeling or annotating a portion of the medical data, such asthe labeling described with respect to FIGS. 3-6. Other enhancements areboth contemplated and provided for. The measurement zoom module 702first receives a reference set of medical data via the medical datainterface 712. In some embodiments, an identifier corresponding to themedical data is received either in addition to or as a substitute forreceiving the medical data itself. The identifier of the medical datamay include some or all of the medical data and/or may include a pointerto data located elsewhere on the system or distributed across a network.The reference data may also be displayed on a display device of thecontroller 704 (e.g., the first user display device 716) for theoperator to view. The control of the display and the data handling maybe performed by the measurement zoom module 702 directly, and/or byother components of the multi-modality processing system 100 separatefrom the measurement zoom module 702.

The reference data may be any suitable medical data. In someembodiments, the medical data includes unprocessed medical data and maybe provided by a modality acquisition component (e.g., IVUS acquisitioncomponent 220 of FIG. 2, a forward-looking IVUS acquisition component,an FFR acquisition component, a CFR acquisition component, an OCTacquisition component, and/or a transesophageal echocardiographyacquisition component). In some embodiments, the medical data includesprocessed medical data and may be provided by a workflow component(e.g., IVUS workflow component 222 of FIG. 2, a forward-looking IVUSworkflow component, an FFR workflow component, a CFR workflow component,an OCT workflow component, and/or a transesophageal echocardiographyworkflow component). In some embodiments, the medical data includes dataaggregated from multiple modalities and may be provided by amulti-modality component.

The measurement zoom module 702 may receive a region identifier suitablefor determining a data set or a portion of a data set to enhance. Invarious embodiments, the region identifier takes the form of a set ofbounding coordinates, a label, a measurement, and/or a bookmarkedlocation. The measurement zoom module 702 receives the region identifierfrom the user input device 714 and/or from another system component suchas a modality workflow component. For example, in an exemplaryembodiment, the measurement zoom module 702 receives an identifier of aregion to enhance from an IVUS workflow component 222 via the modalityfeedback interface 710. In the embodiment, the region identifier isconfigured to highlight, display, or otherwise draw attention to an areaof interest detected by the workflow component. For example, an area ofinterest may be a vessel wall, a stent, and/or a characterized tissuesuch as a plaque or lesion. Such automated enhancements allow componentsof the system to alert the operator to potentially important data thatmight otherwise go unnoticed.

In some embodiments, the region identifier is converted from an initialformat. For example, the region identifier may include a set ofrectangular coordinates corresponding to pixels of the first displaydevice 716, whereas the reference data may be represented in polarcoordinates on a different scale. Accordingly, in various embodiments,the measurement zoom engine 706 of the module 702 converts the regionidentifier from the initial format into an appropriate data format. Thismay include one or more of scale conversion, coordinate conversion,shape translation, and other suitable conversions known to one of skillin the art.

The measurement zoom module 702 may also receive an enhancementselection that specifies one or more enhancement functions to perform.The enhancement selection may be received from the user input device 714and/or another component of the system via the modality feedbackinterface 710.

Based on one or more of the enhancement selection, the regionidentifier, and the reference data, the measurement zoom engine 706determines a target data set for the enhancement. The target data setincludes a portion of the reference data used to specify the region insome instances. The target data set may also include alternate data setseither in addition to the reference data set or instead of the referencedata set. In such embodiments, the data sets included in the target setmay correspond to different modalities, a single modality at differenttimes, a single modality in different operating modes, as well as othercombinations of modalities and operating conditions. In performing someenhancements, the measurement zoom engine 706 may directly or indirectlycombine data sets to form the reference data set. Accordingly, in oneembodiment, the measurement zoom engine 706 provides a command at themodality feedback interface 710 that instructs an MMCM component tocombine at least portions of data sets collected by two or moremodalities. In a related embodiment, the measurement zoom engine 706receives data sets collected by the two or more modalities and performsthe combination within the engine 706. Similarly, in performing someenhancements, the measurement zoom engine 706 may cull data sets inorder to improve responsiveness and reduce the burden on storage,networking, and/or processing resources. In one such embodiment, themeasurement zoom engine 706 culls data outside the region identifier.

In some embodiments, a particular enhancement involves the collection ofdata. The measurement zoom engine may directly or indirectly collectadditional data sets to add to the target data set. For example, themeasurement zoom engine 706 may issue a command via the modalityfeedback interface 710 that instructs the multi-modality processingsystem to collect data from an attached instrument and capture asubsequent data set. The subsequent data set may correspond to the samemodality as the reference data set, may correspond to one or moredifferent modalities, and/or may correspond to a combination ofmodalities that includes the modality of the reference data set. In thisway, the measurement zoom engine 706 is capable of both enhancingexisting data and guiding the collection of subsequent data.

Once the target data set is identified, the measurement zoom engine 706may perform the enhancement on the target data. Some examples ofenhancements include zooming, adjusting brightness, adjusting opacity,adjusting a color mask, increasing and decreasing resolution,resampling, interpolating, adjusting gain, and measuring includingmeasuring distance, area, volume, and rate of change. As a furtherexample, in some embodiments, the measurement zoom engine 706 modifiesone or more processing parameters applied to the target data. In someembodiments, the measurement zoom engine 706 applies modified parametersto the data directly. In some embodiments, the measurement zoom engine706 applies modified parameters to the data indirectly by feeding backmodifications at the modality feedback interface 710 for use by theappropriate system component. In some embodiments, the engine 706applies the modified parameters directly and indirectly. In oneexemplary embodiment, the measurement zoom engine 706 indirectlymodifies a focal distance parameter used by an IVUS workflow component(e.g., IVUS workflow component 222 of FIG. 2) to create focused IVUSdata. In so doing, the measurement zoom engine 706 provides a command atthe modality feedback interface 710 that instructs the workflowcomponent 222 to modify the focal distance parameter in order to provideincreased data granularity and resolution within a region correspondingto the region identifier. In a further exemplary embodiment, themeasurement zoom engine 706 provides a command at the modality feedbackinterface 710 that instructs the IVUS workflow component to changeoperating mode and perform a power flow analysis (e.g., Chromaflo®imaging, a trademark of Volcano Corporation) within the regioncorresponding to the region identifier.

In some embodiments, the reference data and the enhanced target data aredisplayed on different user display devices (e.g., first user displaydevice 716 and second user display device 718, respectively). In someembodiments, these display devices correspond to a single physicaldisplay device at different points in time. Thus, the reference data setmay be displayed on a monitor at a first point in time, and the enhanceddata may be displayed on the monitor at a later time. In someembodiments, these display devices correspond to portions of a singledisplay environment shown on a single monitor or display usingrepresentations such as “windows” of a display “desktop” or regions of adisplay workspace. In some embodiments, the first and second displaydevices correspond to first and second separate physical displays (e.g.,first and second monitors, respectively). Displaying the reference dataand the enhanced target data on different user display devices may beespecially helpful in applications where user input may obscure part ofa display, such as in touchscreen applications.

The measurement zoom module 702 may also provide an interface forstoring a transaction record. A transaction record may include a regionidentifier, an enhancement selection, a data set identifier, a portionof the reference data set, a portion of the enhanced target data set, amodified processing parameter, and/or other suitable elements of thetransaction. The transaction record may be stored within the transactionrecords database 708 or provided at the medical data interface 712 fortransmission and/or storage by components of the system such as thedatabase management component 216 described with respect to FIG. 2. Insome embodiments, the transaction record includes a bookmark thatrecords an aspect of the enhancement operation including a descriptionof a data set, a region, an enhancement, and/or another parameter. Thebookmark can be retrieved and used to restore a previous state and toapply previous data sets, region selections, enhancements, and/orparameters to subsequent data sets. The bookmark may serve as a labelfor indexing as described above with respect to FIGS. 3-6 or may includesuch a label.

The measurement zoom module 702 may also perform on-demand measurementdesigned to provide additional detail and thereby facilitate diagnosticanalysis. For example, an operator can request a detailed measurement ata particular point, referred to as a pinpoint measurement. In such anexample, the measurement zoom module 702 receives a location markerdesignating the point and performs an analysis of the available medicaldata to determine the requested measurement. The analysis may includedata interpolation, predictive analysis, the cross-referencing ofmedical data sets across modalities, and/or other forms of dataanalysis. In another example, an operator can request a measurementbetween two or more reference points. In such an example, themeasurement zoom module 702 receives the reference points and performs ameasurement such as a distance measurement, a volume measurement, anarea measurement, a time measurement, a rate of change measurement,and/or other suitable measurements in relation to the reference points.These measurements are merely exemplary, and other types of measurementsare both contemplated or provided for.

As disclosed above, a reference data set may be displayed on a userdisplay device (e.g., first user display device 716). The measurementzoom module 702 receives one or more location markers based on thereference data. In various embodiments, the location markers arereceived from a user input device (e.g., the user input device 714 ofFIG. 7) and/or a component of the multi-modality processing system. Forexample, a workflow component of the multi-modality system 100 mayspecify a location marker to alert the operator to relevant diagnosticfeatures or areas of interest such as a vessel wall, a stent, a plaque,a lesion, other characterized tissue, and/or other structures ofinterest. In some embodiments, a location marker is determined by acombination of user input and system component feedback. For example, auser may specify a first location that is adjusted or snapped to anearby point of interest identified by a component or module of themulti-modality processing system.

The measurement zoom module 702 may also receive a measurement selectionfrom a user input device and/or a component of the multi-modalityprocessing system. The measurement selection may correspond to one ormore measurement functions such as a distance measurement, an areameasurement, a volume measurement, a time measurement, a rate of changemeasurement, and/or other suitable measurements in relation to thereference points.

Based on the one or more location markers, the measurement selection,and/or the reference data set, the measurement zoom engine 706identifies a target data set to measure. In some embodiments, the targetdata set includes a portion of the reference data set. The target dataset may also include other data sets either in addition to the referencedata set or instead of the reference data set. In such embodiments, thedata sets included in the target set may correspond to differentmodalities, a single modality at different times, a single modality indifferent operating modes, as well as other combinations of modalitiesand operating conditions.

Once the target data is identified, the measurement zoom engine 706performs the measurement or measurements corresponding to themeasurement selection. In an exemplary embodiment, the measurementselection specifies a distance measurement. In the example, the engine706 determines a pixel distance between the location markers andconverts the pixel distance to a physical distance between thecorresponding points, although other methods of determining a distancemeasurement are contemplated and provided for. In doing so, themeasurement zoom engine 706 may perform a conversion from a first formatrelative to the user display device (e.g., pixel-based increments) to asecond format relative to a physical distance (e.g., millimeter-basedincrements) and may perform a conversion from a first coordinate system(e.g., polar coordinates) into a second coordinate system (e.g.,Cartesian coordinates). Accordingly, the measurement zoom engine 706 mayreceive a conversion factor via the modality feedback interface 710based on an operating parameter of the associated modality. Continuingthe exemplary embodiment, the measurement zoom engine 706 receives aconversion factor of samples per millimeter and receives a conversionfactor of samples per pixel. From this, the measurement zoom engine 706determines a number of pixels per millimeter.

As previously described, in some embodiments, the system includesmultiple displays. Accordingly, the reference data, the target data, thelocation markers, and the measured value may be displayed on any one ormore of the display devices. In one such embodiment, reference data isdisplayed on the first user display device 716. An operator enters thelocation markers by a touch sensor (a type of user input device 714)overlaying the first user display device 716. The measurement zoomengine 706 updates the first user display device 716 with iconsillustrating the location markers and the measured value and alsoupdates a second user display device 718 with icons illustrating thelocation markers and the measured value. Displaying location markers andmeasured values on multiple user display devices is especially helpfulin applications where user input may obscure part of a display such astouchscreen applications.

In some implementations, the measurement zoom module 702 provides aninterface for storing elements of a measurement operation such aslocation markers and measured values. For example, the measurement zoomengine 706 may store or provide for storing a transaction record, whichmay include information regarding a location marker, a measurementselection, a measured value, a portion of the reference data set, aportion of the target data set, and/or other suitable elements of thetransaction. The transaction record may be stored within the transactionrecords database 708 or provided at the medical data interface 712 fortransmission and/or storage by components of the system such as thedatabase management component 216 described with respect to FIG. 2. Insome embodiments, the transaction record includes a bookmark thatrecords an aspect of the measurement operation including a descriptionof a data set, a location marker, a measurement type, a measured value,or another parameter. The bookmark can be retrieved and used to restorea previous state and to apply previous data sets, location markers,measurement types, and/or other parameters to subsequent data sets. Thebookmark may serve as a label for indexing as described above withrespect to FIGS. 3-6 or may include such a label.

FIG. 8 is a diagram of an exemplary user interface 800 for on-demanddata enhancement according to some embodiments of the multi-modalityprocessing system 100. The user interface 800 may be presented on asingle user display or multiple displays such as the first and seconduser displays 716 and 718 described with reference to FIG. 7. The userinterface 800 represents one possible arrangement for displaying theinformation presented by the multi-modality processing system and morespecifically the measurement zoom module 702 of the system. One skilledin the art will recognize that alternate arrangements are bothcontemplated and provided for.

The interface 800 included a first data display window 802 and a seconddata display window 804, which may correspond to different displaydevices, a single physical display device at different points in time,different portions of a single display environment on a single displaydevice (using representations such as “windows” of a display “desktop”or regions of a display workspace), and/or different physical displays(i.e., different monitors). In the illustrated embodiment, the firstdata display window 802 presents a reference data set in a first windowof a desktop and the second data display window 804 presents an enhancedtarget data set in a second window of the desktop.

The interface 800 may also include a region selection tool 806 thatenables an operator to specify a region or data portion. In variousnon-limiting examples, the operator can specify a region using typedcoordinates, using reference points designated by mouse input,touch-based input, or digital pen input, using geometric shapesdesignated by mouse input, touch-based input, or digital pen input,and/or other methods of data entry. In that regard, the region selectiontool 806 allows an operator to select a region or data portion byparsing the provided user input.

The interface may also include a toolbar 808. In various embodiments,the toolbar 808 is used to select commands for the multi-modalityprocessing system. Exemplary commands include selection of a region toenhance, selection of an enhancement to perform, as well as data storeand load commands. The interface may also include a number of commandelements 810 for quickly selecting commands to send to themulti-modality processing system. Any command that may be selected froma toolbar is suitable for selection using a command element 810. In thatregard, in an exemplary embodiment, the interface 800 includes commandelements 810 configured to select an enhancement to perform.

FIG. 9 is a diagram of an exemplary user interface 900 for datameasurement according to some embodiments of the multi-modalityprocessing system 100. The user interface 900 may be presented on asingle user display or multiple displays such as the first and seconduser displays 716 and 718 described with reference to FIG. 7. The userinterface 900 represents one possible arrangement for displaying theinformation presented by the multi-modality processing system and morespecifically the measurement zoom module 702 of the system. One skilledin the art will recognize that alternate arrangements are bothcontemplated and provided for.

In many respects, user interface 900 is substantially similar to userinterface 800 of FIG. 8. In that regard, user interface 900 may includea first data display window 802 and a second data display window 804corresponding to different display devices, a single physical displaydevice at different points in time, different portions of a singledisplay environment of a single display device (using representationssuch as “windows” of a display “desktop” or regions of a displayworkspace), and/or different physical displays (i.e., differentmonitors). User interface 900 may also include a toolbar 808 and commandelements 810. User interface 900 may also include markers 902, iconsthat correspond to location markers provided to the system for use indata measurement. The location markers may be provided by the operatorvia the user input device 1212. In some embodiments, the operatordesignates and provide location markers using typed coordinates, using amouse input, using a touch-based input, and/or using digital pen input.The location markers may also be provided by another component of thesystem 100 via the module interface 1208 either in addition to orinstead of the operator-provided location markers. While two locationmarkers are illustrated, in other embodiments, any number of locationmarkers may be provided. In the illustrated embodiment, the markers 902are displayed in the first data display window 802 and the second datadisplay window 804, although further embodiments display the markers inthe first data display window 802 or the second data display window 804.The user interface may also include a measurement output region 904 thatdisplays measurement values determined based on the location markers. Insome embodiments, the measurement values are displayed in one or more ofthe first data display window 802 and the second data display window 804in addition to or in lieu of the measurement output region 904. Whilethe illustrated measurement output region 904 displays a distance, inother embodiments, the measurement output region 904 can display anytype of measurement utilized by the system including an areameasurement, a volume measurement, a time measurement, a rate of changemeasurement, and/or other suitable measurements in relation to thereference points.

FIG. 10 is a flow diagram of a method 1000 of on-demand data enhancementwithin a multi-modality processing system 100 according to someembodiments of the present disclosure. It is understood that additionalsteps can be provided before, during, and after the steps of method1000, and some of the steps described can be replaced or eliminated forother embodiments of the method.

In block 1002, a reference set of medical data is received by themulti-modality processing system 100. In some embodiments, an identifiercorresponding to the medical data is received either in addition to oras a substitute for receiving the medical data itself. The identifier ofthe medical data may include some or all of the medical data and/or mayinclude a pointer to data located elsewhere on the system or distributedacross a network. The reference set of medical data may be any suitablemedical data. For example, the medical data may include unprocessedmedical data provided by a modality acquisition component, processedmedical data provided by a workflow component, and/or aggregate datacorresponding to multiple modalities and provided by a multi-modalitycomponent. In block 1004, the reference set of medical data may bedisplayed on a first display device.

In block 1006, a region identifier is received. The region identifiercorresponds to a subset of the reference set of medical data. In variousembodiments, the region identifier takes the form of a set of boundingcoordinates, a region identifier such as a grid index, a gesture, acommand, a label, a measurement, a bookmarked location, and/or othersuitable format. In some embodiments, the region identifier is receivedfrom a user input device such as user input device 714 described withreference to FIG. 7. Examples of suitable user input devices include,but are not limited to, keyboards, keypads, mice, trackballs, digitalpens, touch-based interfaces, gesture-based interfaces, verbal andspeech-recognition interfaces, adaptive interfaces, cameras,motion-sensing interfaces, light-based sensing mechanisms (e.g.,infrared sensing), and other user input devices known to one of skill inthe art. In some embodiments, the region identifier is received fromanother system component such as a modality workflow component. In onesuch embodiment, the region identifier is configured to highlight,display, or otherwise draw attention to a structure of interest. Suchautomated enhancements allow components of the system to alert theoperator to potentially important data that might otherwise gounnoticed.

In some embodiments, the region identifier is converted from an initialformat. For example, the region identifier may include a set ofrectangular coordinates corresponding to pixels of a display device,whereas the reference data may be represented in polar coordinates on adifferent scale. Accordingly, in various embodiments, the regionidentifier is converted from the initial format into an appropriate dataformat. This may include one or more of scale conversion, coordinateconversion, shape translation, and other suitable conversions known toone of skill in the art.

In block 1008, an enhancement selection is received. The selectionidentifies one or more operations to perform and is received from a userinput device and/or a component of the system.

In block 1010, a target data set is identified based on one or more ofthe enhancement selection, the region identifier, and the referencedata. In some embodiments, the target data set includes a portion of thereference data set. The target data set may also include alternate datasets either in addition to the reference data set or instead of thereference data set. In such embodiments, the data sets included in thetarget set may correspond to different modalities, a single modality atdifferent times, a single modality in different operating modes, as wellas other combinations of modalities and operating conditions. In someembodiments, the method includes directly or indirectly combining datasets to form the target data set. Likewise, in some embodiments themethod includes culling portions of the target data set. In one suchembodiment, the method includes culling data outside a regioncorresponding to the region identifier.

In block 1012, an enhancement is performed on the target data set by thesystem 100. In various embodiments, the enhancement is determined by theenhancement selection, the region identifier, and/or the target dataset. Examples of enhancements include zooming, adjusting brightness,adjusting opacity, adjusting a color mask, increasing and decreasingresolution, resampling, interpolating, adjusting gain, and measuringincluding measuring distance, area, volume, and rate of change. Furtherenhancements combine data collected by multiple modalities and refineprocessing parameters applied to the medical data. For example, in onesuch embodiment, the multi-modality processing system 100 modifies afocal range parameter applied by an IVUS workflow component of thesystem 100 in order to provide increased resolution within the regionspecified by the region identifier. In another such embodiment, themulti-modality processing system modifies a mode of operation of aworkflow component of the system 100.

Enhancements may also include labeling or annotating a portion of themedical data, such as the labeling described with respect to FIGS. 3-6.Other enhancements are contemplated and provided for.

In block 1014, the enhanced target data set is displayed on a seconduser display. The first and second user displays may correspond todifferent user display devices (e.g., first user display device 716 andsecond user display device 718 of FIG. 7). In some embodiments, thesedisplay devices correspond to a single physical display device atdifferent points in time. Thus, the reference data set may be displayedon a monitor at a first point in time, and the enhanced data set may bedisplayed on the monitor afterwards. In some embodiments, the differentuser display device second user displays correspond to portions of asingle display environment on a single display device (usingrepresentations such as “windows” of a display “desktop” or regions of adisplay workspace). In some embodiments, the different display devicescorrespond to first and second physical displays (e.g., first and secondmonitors, respectively).

In block 1016, a transaction record of the enhancement is stored. Invarious embodiments, the record includes a region identifier, anenhancement selection, a data set identifier, a portion of the referencedata set, a portion of the enhanced target data set, a modifiedprocessing parameter, and/or other suitable elements of the transaction.In some embodiments, storing includes providing the transaction recordat a system interface for storage remotely. The transaction record mayinclude a bookmark that records an aspect of the enhancement operationincluding a description of a data set, a region, an enhancement, oranother parameter. The bookmark can be retrieved and used to restore aprevious state and to apply previous data sets, region selections,enhancements, and/or parameters to subsequent data sets. The bookmarkmay serve as a label for indexing as described above with respect toFIGS. 3-6 or may include such a label.

FIG. 11 is a flow diagram of a method 1100 of data measurement within amulti-modality processing system 100 according to some embodiments ofthe present disclosure. It is understood that additional steps can beprovided before, during, and after the steps of method 1100, and some ofthe steps described can be replaced or eliminated for other embodimentsof the method.

In block 1102, a reference set of medical data is received by themulti-modality processing system 100. In some embodiments, an identifiercorresponding to the medical data is received either in addition to oras a substitute for receiving the medical data itself. The identifier ofthe medical data may include some or all of the medical data and/or mayinclude a pointer to data located elsewhere on the system or distributedacross a network. The reference set of medical data may be any suitablemedical data. In block 1104, the reference set of medical data may bedisplayed on a first display device. In block 1106, a location marker isreceived. The location marker may be received from a component of theuser interface such as a user input device 714 of FIG. 7 or from acomponent of the multi-modality system 100 such as a workflow component.As an example of the latter, in an embodiment, a workflow component ofthe multi-modality system 100 specifies a location marker to alert theoperator to relevant diagnostic features such as a vessel wall, a stent,a plaque, a lesion, other characterized tissue, and/or other structuresof interest. In some embodiments, a location marker is determined by acombination of user input and system component feedback. For example, auser may specify a first location that is adjusted or snapped to anearby point of interest identified by a component or module of themulti-modality processing system.

In block 1108, a measurement selection is received. The selectionidentifies one or more measurements to perform. For example, theselection may specify a distance measurement, an area measurement, avolume measurement, a rate of change measurement, a pinpointmeasurement, and/or other suitable measurement.

In block 1110, a target data set is identified. The target data set maydepend on the one or more location markers, the measurement selectionand/or the reference data set. In some embodiments, the target data setincludes a portion of the reference data set. The target data set mayalso include other data sets either in addition to the reference dataset or instead of the reference data set. In such embodiments, the datasets included in the target set may correspond to different modalities,a single modality at different times, a single modality in differentoperating modes, as well as other combinations of modalities andoperating conditions.

In block 1112, a measurement is performed on the target data set by thesystem 100. In various embodiments, the particular measurement performedis determined by the measurement selection, one or more location marker,and/or the target data set. In an exemplary embodiment, the measurementis a distance measurement and includes performing a conversion from afirst coordinate system representative of the user display device (e.g.,pixel-based coordinates) to a second coordinate system representative ofphysical distance (e.g., millimeter-based coordinates). In theparticular embodiment, a conversion factor of samples per millimeter anda conversion factor of samples per pixel are received. From this, thenumber of pixels per millimeters is determined. Then, based on the pixeldistance between the location markers, a physical distance can bedetermined between the corresponding points. In a further exemplaryembodiment, the selected measurement operation is a pinpointmeasurement, a detailed measurement at a particular point. The analysismay include data interpolation, predictive analysis, thecross-referencing of medical data sets across modalities, and/or otherforms of data analysis. The measurement process for determining apinpoint data value may include data interpolation, predictive analysis,the cross-referencing of medical data sets across modalities, and/orother forms of data analysis. Referring to the measurement of block1112, other measurement operations including area measurements, volumemeasurements, rate-of-change measurements, cross-modality measurements,and other measurements known to one of skill in the art are contemplatedand provided for.

In block 1114, the value determined by the measurement operation isdisplayed. As previously described, in some embodiments, the systemincludes multiple displays. Accordingly, the reference data, the targetdata, the location markers, and the measured value may be displayed onany one or more of the display devices. In block 1116, a transactionrecord is created and stored. The transaction record may includeinformation regarding a location marker, a measurement selection, ameasured value, a portion of the reference data set, a portion of thetarget data set, and/or other suitable elements of the transaction. Insome embodiments, storing includes providing the transaction record at asystem interface for storage remotely. The transaction record mayinclude a bookmark that records an aspect of the measurement operationincluding a description of a data set, a location marker, a measurementtype, a measured value, or another parameter. The bookmark can beretrieved and used to restore a previous state and to apply previousdata sets, location markers, measurement types, and/or other parametersto subsequent data sets. The bookmark may serve as a label for indexingas described above with respect to FIGS. 3-6 or may include such alabel.

Referring now to FIG. 12, illustrated is a functional block diagram ofportions of the medical system of FIGS. 1 and 2, including a userinterface component 1200 for distinguishing user input according to someembodiments of the multi-modality processing system 100. The userinterface component 1200 converts operator input in the form of gesturesinto commands for the medical system. Gestures provide an intuitivemechanism for controlling data acquisition, manipulation, and viewing.In some embodiments, gesture recognition allows an operator to selectcommands without changing input devices, without changing activewindows, and/or without navigating a complicated menu structure.Furthermore, in some embodiments, gesture recognition eliminatesunnecessary steps and reduces GUI clutter. The streamlined GUI reducesprocedure time, which results in better patient outcomes and reducedcosts.

The user interface component 1200 includes a gesture recognition module1202, which may, in turn, contain one or more of a gesture recognitionengine 1204, a gesture database 1206, and a module interface 1208 forcommunicating with other components of the medical system. The userinterface component 1200 also includes a controller 1210 or operatorinterface. The controller 1210 includes a user input device 1212 and oneor more user display devices 1214. The user input device 1212 may besubstantially similar to the user input device 314 described withrespect to FIG. 3. In that regard, examples of suitable user inputdevices 1212 include, but are in no way limited to, keyboards, keypads,mice, trackballs, digital pens, touch-based interfaces, gesture-basedinterfaces, verbal and speech-recognition interfaces, adaptiveinterfaces, cameras, motion-sensing interfaces, and other user inputdevices known to one of skill in the art.

Portions of the user interface component 1200 may be implemented, inwhole or in part, as processor-executable software stored onnon-transitory, computer-readable storage media and/or as hardwarecomponents such as special purpose microprocessors, FPGAs,microcontrollers, graphics processing units, and DSPs. In someembodiments, portions of the user interface component 1200 areincorporated into components of the multi-modality processing system 100described with reference to FIGS. 1 and 2. For example, in some suchembodiments, controller 1210 is a component of a bedside controller 118,a main controller 120, a boom display 122, and/or a network console 130described with reference to FIG. 1. As a further example, in some suchembodiments, the gesture recognition module 1202 is incorporated into aUI framework service 240 of a main controller 120, a UI frameworkservice 242 of a bedside controller 118, and/or a UI extension such asIVUS UI extension 246 or IVUS UI extension 248 described with referenceto FIG. 2. In other embodiments, the gesture recognition module 1202 isa separate and distinct component of the multi-modality processingsystem 100.

The gesture recognition module 1202 interprets user input(s) based onrules retrieved from the gesture database 1206 and translates the userinput(s) into commands. In this way, the module 1202 allows operators toutilize gesture-based inputs to issue commands. Possible gesturesinclude physical gestures and verbal commands. Physical gestures may ormay not involve manipulating an input device such as moving an inputdevice or performing a key press. Gestures may also include otherinterface methods known to one of skill in the art. For reference, thegestures may be captured by any suitable user input device includingkeyboards, keypads, mice, trackballs, digital pens, touch-basedinterfaces, verbal and speech-recognition interfaces, adaptiveinterfaces, cameras, motion-sensing interfaces, and other user inputdevices known to one of skill in the art.

The gesture recognition module 1202 receives a user input sequence fromone or more user input devices 1212. The user input sequence may bedivided into discrete elements that represent data collected by theinput device 1212, such as a button press, a key press, movement,captured audio, and captured video, and other input data known to one ofskill in the art. The user input sequence may also contain formattingdata, including device identifiers, device status, device polling, anddelimiters. In some embodiments, the user input sequence combinesmultiple types of data collected from multiple input devices. In suchembodiment, a sequence includes data from a keyboard and a mouse. Inanother such embodiment, a sequence includes data from a pen-based inputand a virtual keypad. An exemplary sequence includes a mouse button downevent followed by positional data, which is followed by a mouse buttonup event. A further exemplary input sequence includes a touchstartevent, a touchmove event, and a touchend event.

The gesture recognition engine 1204 of the module 1202 assembles a listof active commands to compare to the user input sequences. In someembodiments, the module 1202 receives a system state designatorcorresponding to a state or mode of operation of the multi-modalityprocessing system. The state designator may indicate a modality. In thatregard, an exemplary system state designator indicates that the currentdata corresponds to one or more of IVUS, FL-IVUS, FFR determination, acoronary flow reserve (CFR) determination, optical coherence tomography(OCT), transesophageal echocardiography, pressure, flow, and/or othersuitable modalities. The state designator may also indicate a status ofa hardware component, whether medical data is being collected orreviewed, a list of running software components, a status of a softwarecomponent, a mode of a software component, and/or any other suitableproperty of the system.

Based on the state designator, the gesture recognition engine 1204determines the active commands, those commands supported in the currentstate of the system. In assembling the list of active commands, theengine 1204 may query a gesture database 1206 based on the system statedesignator. The records of the gesture database 1206 may include one ormore of a command name, a command format, a correlated system status, acomponent to receive the command, and an identifying characteristic ofan associated gesture, as well as other suitable information. In someembodiments, the list of active commands depends on the modality ormodalities corresponding to the current set of medical data. Forexample, certain commands may be active during the collection and/orreview of data for forward-looking IVUS images (FL-IVUS), while othercommands may be active during the collection and/or review of OCT data.Furthermore, in some embodiments, a subset of active commands is commonto multiple modalities. For example, some commands related tomanipulating images may be uniform across different imaging modalities.Having uniformity across modalities helps simplify the interface, which,in turn, reduces the learning curve and operator burden.

When the list is assembled, the gesture recognition engine 1204 matchesone or more elements of the user input sequence to the list of activecommands. Elements may be matched based on the identifyingcharacteristics of the active commands. If a match is found, thesequence is translated into a corresponding command or series ofcommands and presented at the module interface 1208 for use by theappropriate component. In addition to identifying the associatedcommand(s), the translation may include converting one or more elementsof the user input sequence into parameters of the command. For example,a set of coordinates obtained from a user input sequence may be passedas a parameter of a command. The coordinates may then be used by acomponent of the system such as the measurement zoom module 702described with respect to FIG. 7, the UI framework service 240, thesystem UI extension 244, a modality extension including IVUS UIextension 246 and modality UI extension 250, and/or other suitablecomponent of the system 100.

As a non-limiting example, one gesture-based command, a poke command, isintended to select a single point and is characterized by a selectingevent followed by a movement distance of less than a threshold forunintentional movement. The exemplary poke command passes a set ofcoordinates derived from the gesture input sequence as a parameter.Another exemplary command, a diameter measurement command, ischaracterized by a selecting event followed by a movement distance ofgreater than a threshold for unintentional movement where the movementis within a threshold tolerance of a linear path. The exemplary diametermeasurement command passes start and stop coordinates derived from thegesture input sequence as parameters. Another exemplary command, an areameasurement command, is characterized by a selecting event followed by amovement distance of greater than a threshold for unintentional movementwhere the movement exceeds a threshold tolerance of a linear path. Theexemplary area measurement command passes a geometric shapeapproximating a path traced by the gesture input sequence as aparameter.

When the translation is complete, the gesture recognition engine 1204presents the translated command(s) at the module interface 1208 for useby the appropriate component. In some embodiments, the gesturerecognition module 1202 displays the translated command(s) to theoperator via the controller 1210 for confirmation prior to presentingthe command(s) at the module interface 1208. If the operator confirmsthe command, it may be presented at the module interface 1208 for use bythe system 100. If the operator is not satisfied with the translatedcommand, the gesture recognition module 1202 may cancel and/or modifythe command at the operator's request. In some embodiments, the operatorcan modify elements of the command by further gestures and input. Insome such embodiments, the gesture recognition module 1202 presents theoperator with reference points that the operator can drag or otherwisemanipulate to adjust a location or path. In another such embodiment, thegesture recognition module 1202 presents the operator with a suggestedmodification to the current command. The suggestion may be based onsystem defaults, user preference, and/or other criteria. In another suchembodiment, the gesture recognition module 1202 presents the operatorwith a list of alternative commands for the operator to select from.U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 61/560,677, entitled “MEDICALSENSING CONTROL SYSTEM AND METHOD”, also discloses gestures and gesturetranslation and is hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety.

An exemplary embodiment is described with reference to FIGS. 13-17. FIG.13 is a diagram of an exemplary user interface 1300 displaying agesture-based user input sequence according to some embodiments of themulti-modality processing system 100. FIG. 14 is a diagram of anexemplary user interface 1400 displaying a gesture-based user inputsequence according to some embodiments of the multi-modality processingsystem 100. FIG. 15 is a diagram of an exemplary user interface 1500displaying a translated instruction according to some embodiments of themulti-modality processing system 100. FIG. 16 is a diagram of anexemplary user interface 1600 displaying a gesture-based user inputsequence according to some embodiments of the multi-modality processingsystem 100. FIG. 17 is a diagram of an exemplary user interface 1700displaying a translated instruction according to some embodiments of themulti-modality processing system 100.

Referring more specifically to FIG. 13, in the illustrated embodiment, aset of medical data is displayed on first user display 1302 and seconduser display 1304. The gesture recognition module 1202 receives a statedesignator identifying a modality corresponding to the set of medicaldata and a mode of operation. The gesture recognition engine 1204 of themodule 1202 then queries the gesture database 1206 based on the statedesignator and receives the active commands. The active commands areadded to a list along with identifying characteristics used to recognizethe associated gestures.

In some instances, the gesture recognition engine 1204 receives a userinput sequence including a touchstart event. In the illustratedembodiment, a marker 1310 is displayed based on the touchstart event.The user input sequence also includes positional data and a touchendevent (illustrated by marker 1312). The markers 1310 and 1312 may bedisplayed on any suitable user display device or devices including thefirst user display 1302 and the second user display 1304 of FIG. 13. Thegesture recognition engine 1204 matches the user input sequence to agesture based on the identifying characteristics of the active commands.In the example of FIG. 13, a poke command is intended to select a singlepoint and ignores movement of the input device if it is minor andappears unintentional. A threshold may be established for unintentionalmovement. Accordingly, the identifying characteristics of a poke commandinclude a touchstart event followed by a movement distance of less thanthe threshold length followed by a touchend event. In the illustratedembodiment, the user input sequence is interpreted as a poke command.

As part of the translation, the gesture recognition engine 1204determines a set of coordinates to pass as a parameter of the pokecommand. In various examples, the coordinates are based on thecoordinates of the touchstart event, on the coordinates of the touchendevent, or a midpoint between the coordinates of the touchstart and thetouchend events. In some embodiments, the coordinates may be adjusted byor snapped to a location determined by the system 100. For example, inembodiments where the system 100 supports border detection, auser-specified location may be snapped to a nearby border and thecoordinates determined accordingly. Border detection in a medicalimaging context is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,200,268 entitled“VASCULAR PLAQUE CHARACTERIZATION” issued Mar. 13, 2001, U.S. Pat. No.6,381,350 entitled “INTRAVASCULAR ULTRASONIC ANALYSIS USING ACTIVECONTOUR METHOD AND SYSTEM” issued Apr. 30, 2002, U.S. Pat. No. 7,074,188entitled “SYSTEM AND METHOD OF CHARACTERIZING VASCULAR TISSUE” issuedJul. 11, 2006, U.S. Pat. No. 7,175,597 entitled “NON-INVASIVE TISSUECHARACTERIZATION SYSTEM AND METHOD” issued Feb. 13, 2007, U.S. Pat. No.7,215,802 entitled “SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR VASCULAR BORDER DETECTION”issued May 8, 2007, U.S. Pat. No. 7,359,554 entitled “SYSTEM AND METHODFOR IDENTIFYING A VASCULAR BORDER” issued Apr. 15, 2008, and U.S. Pat.No. 7,463,759 entitled “SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR VASCULAR BORDER DETECTION”issued Dec. 9, 2008, the teachings of which are hereby incorporated byreference herein in their entirety.

The translated “poke” command is provided at the module interface 1208for use by a component of the system such as the measurement zoom module702 described with respect to FIG. 7, the UI framework service 240, thesystem UI extension 244, a modality extension including IVUS UIextension 246 and modality UI extension 250, and/or other suitablecomponent of the system 100.

Referring now to FIG. 14, in the illustrated embodiment, the gesturerecognition engine receives a different user input sequence afterdisplaying the set of medical data on the first user display 1302 andthe second user display device 1304. The exemplary user input sequenceincludes a touchstart event (illustrated by marker 1410), positionaldata (illustrated by trace 1412), and a touchend event (illustrated bymarker 1414). The markers 1410 and 1414 and the trace 1412 may bedisplayed on any suitable user display device or devices 1214 includingthe first user display 1302 and the second user display 1304 of FIG. 14.The gesture recognition engine 1204 matches the user input sequence to agesture based on the identifying characteristics of the active commands.In the example of FIG. 14, a diameter measurement command is intended tomeasure a distance in a straight line between two specified points.Accordingly, the identifying characteristics of the command include amovement distance greater than a threshold for unintentional movementand a movement path within a threshold tolerance of a linear path. Inthe illustrated embodiment, the user input sequence is interpreted as adiameter measurement command.

The gesture recognition engine 1204 may perform further translation suchas determining coordinate endpoints based on the user input. In variousexamples, the coordinate endpoints are based on the coordinates of thetouchstart event and/or on the coordinates of the touchend event. Insome embodiments, the coordinate endpoints may be adjusted by or snappedto a region determined by the system 100. For example, in embodimentswhere the system 100 supports border detection, a user-specifiedlocation may be snapped to a nearby border and the coordinatesdetermined accordingly. The gesture recognition engine 1204 may alsocorrect or account for abnormalities that would affect the diametermeasurement.

Referring now to FIG. 15, in the illustrated embodiment, the translateddiameter measurement command described with reference to FIG. 14 isdisplayed on one or more of the user display device or devices 1214including first display device 1302 and second display device 1304. Thispresents the operator an opportunity to verify the translation. In theillustrated embodiment, the first user display 1302 and the second userdisplay 1304 utilize marker 1510 to represent a start point of thecommand, marker 1514 to represent an endpoint of the command, and trace1512 to represent the linear path of the command. The operator canconfirm the translated command via a user input device 1212. If thecommand is confirmed by the operator, the command is provided at themodule interface 1208 for use by the respective component of the systemsuch as a measurement zoom module 702 described with respect to FIG. 7,the UI framework service 240, the system UI extension 244, a modalityextension including IVUS UI extension 246 and modality UI extension 250,and/or other suitable component of the system 100. If the operator isnot satisfied with the translated command, the gesture recognitionmodule 1202 may cancel and/or modify the command at the operator'srequest. For example, the gesture recognition module 1202 may allow theoperator to drag the endpoints, may present the operator with otherreference points that the operator can manipulate, may present theoperator with a suggested modification to the current command, and/ormay present a list of alternative commands for the operator to selectfrom.

Referring now to FIG. 16, in the illustrated embodiment, the gesturerecognition engine receives another user input sequence based on the setof medical data displayed on the first and second user displays 1302 and1304. The exemplary user input sequence includes a touchstart event(illustrated by marker 1610), positional data (illustrated by trace1612), and a touchend event (illustrated by marker 1614). The marker1610 and 1614 and the trace 1612 may be displayed on any suitable userdisplay device or devices 1214 including the first user display 1302 andthe second user display 1304 of FIG. 16. The gesture recognition engine1204 matches the user input sequence to a gesture based on theidentifying characteristics of the active commands. In the example ofFIG. 16, an area measurement command is intended to determine an areawithin a specified boundary. Accordingly, the identifyingcharacteristics of the command include a movement distance greater thana threshold for unintentional movement and a movement path beyond athreshold tolerance of a linear path. In the illustrated embodiment, theuser input sequence is interpreted as an area measurement command.

As part of the translation, the gesture recognition engine may performfurther interpretation such as determining coordinate endpoints for thecommand. In various examples, the coordinate endpoints are based on thecoordinates of the touchstart event and/or on the coordinates of thetouchend event. The gesture recognition engine 1204 may also determine asmoothed geometric path, such as a circular, ovoid, spline, or polygonalpath, for the corresponding command. The location, shape, and nature ofthe geometric path may be determined in part on locations and structuresdetected and recognized by the system 100. In an exemplary embodiment, ageometric path represented by a circle is resized and shifted tointersect border points as determined by the system 100. In a furtherexemplary embodiment, an ovoid geometric path is substituted for acircular geometric path in order to more closely intersect one or moreborder points as determined by the system. In another exemplaryembodiment, breakpoints of a spline are adjusted to snap to borderpoints as determined by the system.

Referring now to FIG. 17, in the illustrated embodiment, the translatedarea measurement command described with reference to FIG. 16 isdisplayed on one or more of the user display device or devices 1214,providing an opportunity to verify the translation. In the illustratedembodiment, the first user display 1302 and the second user display 1304utilize trace 1712 to represent the smoothed geometric path of thecommand. The operator can confirm the translated command via a userinput device 1212. If the command is confirmed by the operator, thecommand is provided at the module interface 1208 for use by therespective component of the system such as a measurement zoom module 702described with respect to FIG. 7, the UI framework service 240, thesystem UI extension 244, a modality extension including IVUS UIextension 246 and modality UI extension 250, and/or other suitablecomponent of the system 100. If the operator is not satisfied with thetranslated command, the gesture recognition module 1202 may canceland/or modify the command at the operator's request. For example, thegesture recognition module 1202 may present the operator with referencepoints that the operator can drag or otherwise manipulate to adjust anendpoint or intermediate point, may present the operator with asuggested modification to the current command, and/or may present a listof alternative commands for the operator to select from.

FIG. 18 is a flow diagram of a method 1800 of gesture recognition withina multi-modality processing system 100 according to some embodiments ofthe present disclosure. It is understood that additional steps can beprovided before, during, and after the steps of method 1800, and some ofthe steps described can be replaced or eliminated for other embodimentsof the method.

In block 1802, a state designator is received by a component of thesystem 100 such as the gesture recognition module 1202 of FIG. 12. Thestate designator may indicate a modality. In that regard, an exemplarysystem state designator indicates that the current data corresponds toone or more of IVUS, FL-IVUS, FFR determination, a coronary flow reserve(CFR) determination, optical coherence tomography (OCT), transesophagealechocardiography, pressure, flow, and/or other suitable modalities. Thestate designator may also indicate a status of a hardware component,whether medical data is being collected or reviewed, a list of runningsoftware components, a status of a software component, a mode of asoftware component, and/or any other suitable property of the system.

In block 1804, a list of active commands is assembled. In someembodiments, the list of active commands is based on the statedesignator. For example, the list may be based on a modality and mayinclude a subset of active commands that apply to multiple modalities.In some embodiments, assembling the list includes querying an electronicdatabase, gesture database 1206, using the state designator. The recordsof the gesture database 1206 may include one or more of a command name,a command format, a correlated system status, a component to receive thecommand, and an identifying characteristic of an associated gesture, aswell as other suitable information.

In block 1806, a user input sequence is received. The sequence may bereceived from an suitable user input device, including keyboards,keypads, mice, trackballs, digital pens, touch-based interfaces, verbaland speech-recognition interfaces, adaptive interfaces, cameras,motion-sensing interfaces, and other user input devices known to one ofskill in the art. In some embodiments, the user input sequence combinessequences from multiple input devices, for example, a keyboard and amouse. The sequence may take any suitable form known to one of skill inthe art. In an exemplary embodiment, elements of the sequence representa device state, an event, positional data such as movement data, aspeech sample, delimiter, and/or other sequence elements.

In block 1808, the user input sequence is correlated to a command fromthe supported command list. This may include comparing one or moresequence elements of the user input sequence to the distinguishingcriteria of the active commands. It may also include mapping one or moresequence elements to parameters of the corresponding command. In block1810, the command mapped to the user input sequence is generated. Thismay include generating values for one or more parameters of the commandbased on the user input sequence.

In block 1812, the command is displayed on a user display device forconfirmation by an operator. This may include receiving a confirmationreply via the user input device 1212. If the operator is not satisfiedwith the translated command, in block 1814, the command may be canceledand/or modified at the operator's request. In some embodiments, thisincludes presenting options for modifications to the command and/orreceiving further user input specifying the modifications to apply. Insome such embodiments, reference points are presented that the operatorcan drag or otherwise manipulate to adjust a location or path. Inanother such embodiment, suggested modifications to the current commandare presented and a selection is received. The suggestions may be basedon system defaults, user preference, and/or other criteria. In anothersuch embodiment, a list of alternative commands is presented and aselection is received. When the operator confirms the command, in block1816, the command is presented at a module interface 1208 forutilization by an appropriate component of the system.

FIG. 19 is a functional block diagram of portions of the medical systemof FIGS. 1 and 2, including a user interface component 1900 fornavigating sets of medical data according to some embodiments of themulti-modality processing system 100. The user interface component 1900presents a high-level view of a reference set of medical data, fromwhich the operator can select a subset to explore in a detailed view. Tocreate the detailed view, in some embodiments, the user interfacecomponent 1900 performs a single-axis zoom, whereby the subset of datais resized along a first axis independent of a second axis. This isparticularly useful for medical data sets that include data valuesplotted over a range of time or distance, or where the data values areperiodic. In such data, the peak-to-peak extremes along one axis mightnot vary substantially as the scaling of the second axis is adjusted.

One example of a data set suitable for single-axis zoom enhancement isfractional flow reserve (FFR) data. FFR is a currently acceptedtechnique for assessing the severity of a stenosis in a blood vessel,including ischemia-causing lesions. FFR is a calculation of the ratio ofa distal pressure measurement (taken on the distal side of the stenosis)relative to a proximal pressure measurement (taken on the proximal sideof the stenosis). FFR provides an index of stenosis severity that allowsdetermination as to whether the blockage limits blood flow within thevessel to an extent that treatment is required. The normal value of FFRin a healthy vessel is 1.00, while values less than about 0.80 aregenerally deemed significant and require treatment. Further measurementssuch as Instant Wave-Free Ratio™ Functionality data (iFR® Functionality)(both trademarks of Volcano Corp.) and those disclosed in U.S. patentapplication Ser. No. 13/460,296, entitled “DEVICES, SYSTEMS, AND METHODSFOR ASSESSING A VESSEL,” which discloses the use of pressure ratios thatare available without a hyperemic agent, are also suitable for suchenhancement. iFR® and FFR data sets may include values corresponding topressure measurement, pressure ratios, and/or pressure differentialsmeasured over a range of time. By allowing an operator to adjust thescaling of the time axis independent of the pressure or ratio axis, theuser interface component 1900 can provide a more useful display of theselected subset to a user.

Additionally, the user interface component 1900 allows the operator tospecify a number of data manipulations including data selection, dataenhancement, and bookmarking using the high-level and/or the detailedview. In that regard, the user interface component 1900 may incorporatesome or all of the functionality of the measurement zoom module 702described with respect to FIG. 7, the gesture recognition module 1202described with respect to FIG. 12, and/or other components of the system100 disclosed herein. Thus, in various embodiments, the user interfacecomponent 1900 is capable of performing a variety of data enhancementson the subset of data including zooming, adjusting brightness, adjustingopacity, adjusting a color mask, increasing and decreasing resolution,resampling, interpolating, adjusting gain, and measuring includingmeasuring distance, area, volume, and rate of change. In this way, theuser interface component 1900 provides an improved interface fornavigating and manipulating data sets in a manner responsive to thenature of the underlying data.

The user interface component 1900 includes a measurement navigatormodule 1902, which may, in turn, contain one or more of a navigatorengine 1904, a medical data interface 1906 for receiving a set ofmedical data, and an electronic database of transactions, bookmarks, andannotations 1908. The user interface component 1900 also includes acontroller 1910 or operator interface. The controller 1910 may includeone or more user display devices 1914 and a user input device 1912. Theuser input device 1912 may be substantially similar to the user inputdevice 314 described with respect to FIG. 3. In that regard, examples ofsuitable user input devices 1912 include, but are in no way limited to,keyboards, keypads, mice, trackballs, digital pens, touch-basedinterfaces, gesture-based interfaces, verbal and speech-recognitioninterfaces, adaptive interfaces, cameras, motion-sensing interfaces, andother user input devices known to one of skill in the art.

Portions of the user interface component 1900 may be implemented, inwhole or in part, as processor-executable software stored onnon-transitory, computer-readable storage media and/or as hardwarecomponents such as special purpose microprocessors, FPGAs,microcontrollers, graphics processing units, and DSPs. In someembodiments, portions of the user interface component 1900 areincorporated into components of the multi-modality processing system 100described with reference to FIGS. 1 and 2. For example, in some suchembodiments, controller 1910 is a component of a bedside controller 118,a main controller 120, a boom display 122, and/or a network console 130described with reference to FIG. 1. As a further example, in some suchembodiments, the measurement navigator module 1902 is incorporated intoa UI framework service 240 of a main controller 120, a UI frameworkservice 242 of a bedside controller 118, and/or a UI extension such asIVUS UI extension 246 or IVUS UI extension 248 described with referenceto FIG. 2. In other embodiments, the measurement navigator module 1902is a separate and distinct component of the multi-modality processingsystem 100.

The measurement navigator module 1902 receives a reference set ofmedical data via the medical data interface 1906. In some embodiments,an identifier corresponding to the medical data is received either inaddition to or as a substitute for receiving the medical data itself.The identifier of the medical data may include some or all of themedical data and/or may include a pointer to data located elsewhere onthe system or distributed across a network. The reference data set mayalso be displayed on a display device of the controller 1910 (e.g., theuser display device 1914) for the operator to view. The control of thedisplay and the data handling may be performed by the measurementnavigator module 1902 directly and/or by other components of themulti-modality processing system 100 separate from the measurementnavigator module 1902. In some embodiments, the reference data ispresented as a graph, such as a timeline or a plot over distance,although other formats for displaying the data are contemplatedincluding two dimensional and three-dimensional images.

The reference set of medical data may be any suitable medical data. Insome embodiments, the medical data includes unprocessed medical data andmay be provided by a modality acquisition component (e.g., a fractionalflow reserve acquisition component, an iFR acquisition component, apressure acquisition component, a flow acquisition component, an IVUSacquisition component 220 of FIG. 2, a forward-looking IVUS acquisitioncomponent, an FFR acquisition component, a CFR acquisition component, anOCT acquisition component, and/or a transesophageal echocardiographyacquisition component). In some embodiments, the medical data includesprocessed medical data and may be provided by a workflow component(e.g., a fractional flow reserve workflow component, an iFR workflowcomponent, a pressure workflow component, a flow workflow component, anIVUS workflow component, a forward-looking IVUS workflow component, anFFR workflow component, a CFR workflow component, an OCT workflowcomponent, and/or a transesophageal echocardiography workflowcomponent). In some embodiments, the medical data includes dataaggregated from multiple modalities and may be provided by amulti-modality workflow component.

The measurement navigator module 1902 also receives one or morenavigation commands, such as a data selection indicating a portion ofthe reference set of medical data, an enhancement selection, a bookmarkcommand, zoom-in and zoom-out commands, and other suitable navigationcommands. Based on the navigation commands and/or the reference set ofmedical data, the navigator engine 1904 determines a subset of thereference medical data to enhance. The subset may include all or aportion of the reference set. The subset may also include alternate datasets either in addition to the reference data set or instead of thereference data set. In such embodiments, the data sets included in thesubset may correspond to different modalities, a single modality atdifferent times, a single modality in different operating modes, as wellas other combinations of modalities and operating conditions. Withrespect to some types of data selection commands, the navigation commandmay be converted from an initial format to a data format. For example, anavigation command may include a set of rectangular coordinatescorresponding to pixels of a user display device 1914. Accordingly, inan embodiment, the navigator engine 1904 of the module 1902 convertspixel coordinates into data values. This may include one or moreconversions such as scale conversion, coordinate conversion, shapetranslation, and other suitable conversions known to one of skill in theart.

In some embodiments, the navigation commands are operator commands andare received via the user input device 1912. In one such embodiment, agesture interface (e.g., gesture recognition module 1202 of FIG. 12) incommunication with the user input device 1912 and the measurementnavigator module 1902 receives a gesture from the user input device1912, translates the gesture into a navigation command, and provides thenavigation command to the measurement navigator module 1902. In afurther such embodiment, the measurement navigator module 1902incorporates some or all of the gesture recognition module 1202.Navigation commands may also be received from another system componentsuch as a modality workflow component. For example, in an exemplaryembodiment, the measurement navigator module 1902 receives a dataselection indicating a portion of the medical data from an FFR workflowcomponent. The data selection may be configured to highlight, display,and/or otherwise draw attention to a value of interest detected by theworkflow component such as a peak FFR value, a value exceeding athreshold, and/or a value indicating a sensor malposition. In anotherexemplary embodiment, the measurement navigator 1902 receives a bookmarkfrom the FFR workflow component. The bookmark may be configured toprovide a point of reference for quickly locating a value of interestdetected by the workflow component. Such behavior allows components ofthe system to alert the operator to potentially important data thatmight otherwise go unnoticed.

As previously discussed, the measurement navigator module 1902 mayreceive navigator commands that specify one or more enhancementfunctions to perform. Examples of suitable enhancements include zooming,adjusting brightness, adjusting opacity, adjusting a color mask,increasing and decreasing resolution, resampling, interpolating,adjusting gain, and measuring including measuring distance, area,volume, and rate of change. Enhancements may also include labeling orannotating a portion of the medical data, such as the labeling describedwith respect to FIGS. 3-6. Other suitable enhancements include asingle-axis zoom. Unlike a two-axis zoom, the navigator engine 1904 mayresize, resample, or otherwise enhance data along a first axis, such asa time axis, independent of a second axis, such as a pressure orvelocity axis. In one such embodiment, a reference data setcorresponding to FFR measurements includes pressure data points over arange of time. An operator selects to perform a single-axis zoom andspecifies start and stop time boundaries and accordingly a new range. Inresponse, the navigator engine 1904 scales the subset of data indicatedby the new range along the time axis, but not necessarily along thepressure axis. Instead, in the exemplary embodiment, the pressure axisis rescaled based on maximum and minimum pressure values over the newrange. In a related embodiment, the navigator engine 1904 scales thesubset of data along the time axis, but does not rescale the pressureaxis from that of the reference set. In a further set of embodiments,the measurement navigator engine 1904 performs a single-axis zoom ofiFR® imaging data. The operator selects a single-axis zoom and start andstop time boundaries. The navigator engine 1904 rescales the subsetdescribed by the start and stop time boundaries along a time axis, butin various embodiments, rescales the pressure axis independently or doesnot rescale the pressure axis relative to the reference set. Bysupporting single-axis manipulations in addition to or instead oftwo-axis manipulations, the navigator engine 1904 provides a more usefulrepresentation of certain types of data corresponding to certainmodalities. In that regard, in various embodiments, a single-axismanipulation is performed on FFR data, iFR data, pressure data, flowdata, and/or other suitable datasets in order to present a more usefulrepresentation of the enhanced data.

As with data-specifying commands, commands that specify the type ofenhancement to be made may also be received from the user input device1912 and/or from another component of the system. As the specifiedenhancement may be performed by the measurement navigator module 1902and/or another component of the system, such as the measurement zoommodule 702, the UI framework service 240, the system UI extension 244, amodality extension including IVUS UI extension 246 and modality UIextension 250, and/or other suitable component of the system 100, themeasurement navigator module 1902 may forward the enhancement selectioncommand to the appropriate system component. For example, in performingsome enhancements, the navigator engine 1904 may directly or indirectlycombine data sets to form the subset. Accordingly, in one embodiment,the navigator engine 1904 provides a command that instructs an MMCMcomponent to combine data sets collected by two or more modalities. In arelated embodiment, the navigator engine 1904 receives data setscollected by the two or more modalities and performs the combinationwithin the engine 1904. Similarly, in performing some enhancements, thenavigator engine 1904 may cull data sets in order to improveresponsiveness and/or reduce the burden on storage, networking, and/orprocessing resources. In one such embodiment, the navigator engine 1904culls data outside the selected subset.

Once the type of enhancement to be performed has been determined, themeasurement navigator module 1902 may then perform the enhancement onthe subset of medical data as instructed by the navigation command.Thereafter, the enhanced subset may be displayed on a user displaydevice. In some embodiments, the reference data and the enhanced subsetof data may be displayed on different user display devices (e.g., firstuser display device and second user display device, respectively). Insome embodiments, these display devices correspond to a single physicaldisplay device at different points in time. Thus, the reference data setmay be displayed on a monitor at a first point in time, and the enhanceddata may be displayed on the monitor at a later time. In someembodiments, these display devices correspond to portions of a singledisplay environment on a single display device (using representationssuch as “windows” of a display “desktop” or regions of a displayworkspace). In some embodiments, the first and second display devicescorrespond to first and second physical displays (e.g., first and secondmonitors, respectively). Displaying the reference data and the enhancedsubset of data on different user display devices may be especiallyhelpful in applications where user input may obscure part of a displaysuch as touchscreen applications. In some embodiments, the measurementnavigator module 1902 updates the display of the reference data setbased on the navigation commands. This may include adding icons toindicate labels, bookmarks, boundaries of the selected subset, and otherpoints of interest. The display may also be update to include shading toindicate data within or outside the selected subset. As previouslymentioned, the generation of the display signal corresponding to thereference data and the enhanced subset may be performed by themeasurement navigator module 1902 directly, and/or by other componentsof the multi-modality processing system 100 separate from themeasurement navigator module 1902.

The measurement navigator module 1902 may also provide an interface forstoring a transaction record. A transaction record may include a regionidentifier, an enhancement selection, a data set identifier, a portionof the reference data set, a portion of the enhanced subset, a modifiedprocessing parameter, and/or other suitable elements of the transaction.The transaction record may be stored within the transaction recordsdatabase 1908 or provided for transmission and/or storage by componentsof the system such as the database management component 216 describedwith respect to FIG. 2. In some embodiments, the transaction recordincludes a bookmark that records an aspect of the enhancement operationincluding a description of a data set, a region, an enhancement, oranother parameter. The bookmark can be retrieved and used to restore aprevious state and to apply previous data sets, region selections,enhancements, and/or parameters to subsequent data sets. The bookmarkmay serve as a label for indexing as described above with respect toFIGS. 3-6 or may include such a label.

FIG. 20 is a diagram of an exemplary user interface 2000 for datanavigation and enhancement according to some embodiments of themulti-modality processing system 100. The user interface 2000 may bepresented on a single user display or multiple displays. The userinterface 2000 represents one possible arrangement for displaying theinformation presented by the multi-modality processing system and morespecifically the measurement navigator module 1902 of the system. Oneskilled in the art will recognize that alternate arrangements are bothcontemplated and provided for.

The interface 2000 may include a first data display window 2002 and asecond data display window 2004, which may correspond to differentdisplay devices, a single physical display device at different points intime, different portions of a single display environment on a singledisplay device (using representations such as “windows” of a display“desktop” or regions of a display workspace), and/or different physicaldisplays (i.e., different monitors). In the illustrated embodiment, thefirst data display window 2002 presents a reference data set in a firstwindow of a desktop and the second data display window 2004 presents anenhanced subset of the reference data set in a second window of thedesktop. In the illustrated embodiment, the enhanced subset hasundergone a single-axis zoom procedure. In other words, the enhancedsubset has been rescaled along a first axis (the time axis) independentof a second axis (the pressure axis).

In some embodiments, one or more of the first data display window 2002and the second data display window 2004 include bookmark icons 2006,subset boundary icons 2008 and 2010, and other annotations. The boundaryicons 2008 and 2010 may mark the outer bounds the subset along an axis(the time axis in the illustrated embodiment). In some embodiments, thesubset is identified by shading regions within or outside the subset.

The interface 2000 may also include one or more auxiliary displayregions 2012 for displaying medical data such as values from thereference set of data and/or the enhanced subset. In some embodiments,the interface 2000 includes a toolbar 2014. In various such embodiments,the toolbar 2014 is used to select commands for the multi-modalityprocessing system. Exemplary commands include selection of a subset toenhance, selection of an enhancement to perform, as well as data storeand load commands. The interface may also include a number of commandelements 2016 for quickly selecting commands to send to themulti-modality processing system. Any command that may be selected froma toolbar is suitable for selection using a command element 2016. Inthat regard, in an exemplary embodiment, the interface 2000 includescommand elements 2016 configured to adjust the boundaries of the subset,set and restore bookmarks, label data values, and zoom-in or zoom-out ofthe reference set and/or the subset.

FIG. 21 is a flow diagram of a method 2100 of navigating and enhancingsets of medical data within a multi-modality processing system accordingto some embodiments of the present disclosure. It is understood thatadditional steps can be provided before, during, and after the steps ofmethod 2100, and some of the steps described can be replaced oreliminated for other embodiments of the method.

In block 2102, a reference set of medical data is received by themulti-modality processing system 100. The reference set of medical datamay be any suitable medical data. For example, the medical data mayinclude unprocessed medical data provided by a modality acquisitioncomponent, processed medical data provided by a workflow component,and/or aggregate data corresponding to multiple modalities and providedby a multi-modality component. In some embodiments, an identifiercorresponding to the medical data is received either in addition to oras a substitute for receiving the medical data itself. The identifier ofthe medical data may include some or all of the medical data and/or mayinclude a pointer to data located elsewhere on the system or distributedacross a network. In block 2004, the reference set of medical data maybe displayed on a display device.

In block 2106, a navigation command is received. Navigation commands maydefine a subset to enhance, may select an enhancement to perform, mayset or restore a bookmark, may apply a label, and may perform othersuitable navigation tasks. In some exemplary embodiments, a gesturerecognition module (e.g., the gesture recognition module 1202 of FIG.12), incorporated into the measurement navigator module 1902 and/or incommunication therewith, receives a touch-based input sequence from auser input device 1912. The exemplary touch-based input sequenceindicates a first touch at a first location and concurrent a secondtouch at a second location. The gesture recognition module translatesthe input sequence into a command to perform a single-axis zoom on asubset corresponding to the region between first touch location and thesecond touch location. Thus, the navigation command designates a rangefor the subset having a first boundary corresponding to the first touchlocation and a second boundary corresponding to the second touchlocation. The gesture recognition module provides the translated commandto a measurement navigator module 1902. While a single-axis zoom isprovided as an example, any type of enhancement of the data may beimplemented using this method.

In block 2108, the display of the reference set of medical data may beupdated based on the received navigation command. For example, thedisplay may be updated to include icons that indicate labels, bookmarks,boundaries of the selected subset, and other points of interest. In someembodiments, the display is updated to include shading to indicate datawithin or outside the selected subset.

In block 2110, the enhancement to be performed may be identified. Theenhancement may be based on one or more navigation commands and/or thereference set of data. In block 2112, a subset of the reference set ofdata to be enhanced is identified. Similar to the enhancement, thesubset may depend on one or more navigation commands and/or thereference set of data. The subset of data may include some or all of thereference set and may also include alternate data sets either inaddition to or instead of the reference data set. In such embodiments,the data sets included in the subset may correspond to differentmodalities, a single modality at different times, a single modality indifferent operating modes, as well as other combinations of modalitiesand operating conditions. In some embodiments, the enhancement includesthe co-registration of data corresponding to multiple differentmodalities. Co-registration across different modalities is disclosed infurther detail in U.S. Pat. No. 7,930,014 entitled “VASCULAR IMAGECO-REGISTRATION” issued Apr. 19, 2011, and U.S. Pat. Pub. No.2007/0038061 entitled “THREE DIMENSIONAL CO-REGISTRATION FORINTRAVASCULAR DIAGNOSIS AND THERAPY” filed Jun. 23, 2006, the teachingsof which are hereby incorporated by reference herein in their entirety.In some embodiments, the method includes directly or indirectlycombining data sets to form the subset. Likewise, in some embodimentsthe method includes culling portions of the subset. In one suchembodiment, the method includes culling data outside a selected region.

In block 2114, an enhancement is performed on the subset of data set bythe system 100. In various embodiments, the enhancement is determined byone or more navigation commands and/or the reference set of data.Suitable enhancements include, and are not limited to, zooming,adjusting brightness, adjusting opacity, adjusting a color mask,increasing and decreasing resolution, resampling, interpolating,adjusting gain, and measuring including measuring distance, area,volume, and rate of change. Enhancements may also include labeling orannotating a portion of the medical data, such as the labeling describedwith respect to FIGS. 3-6. Other enhancements are both contemplated andprovided for. As a further example, in some embodiments, the enhancementincludes a single-axis zoom, whereby the subset of data is resized alonga first axis independent of a second axis.

In block 2116, the enhanced data subset is displayed. The reference dataand the enhanced subset may be displayed on different user displaydevices (e.g., a first user display device and a second user displaydevice). In some embodiments, these display devices correspond to asingle physical display device at different points in time. Thus, thereference data set may be displayed on a monitor at a first point intime, and the enhanced subset may be displayed on the monitorafterwards. In some embodiments, these display devices correspond toportions of a single display environment on a single display device(using representations such as “windows” of a display “desktop” orregions of a display workspace). In some embodiments, the first andsecond display devices correspond to first and second physical displays(e.g., first and second monitors, respectively).

In block 2118, a transaction record of the enhancement is stored. Invarious embodiments, the record includes a region identifier, anenhancement selection, a data set identifier, a portion of the referencedata set, a portion of the enhanced subset, a modified processingparameter, and/or other suitable elements of the transaction. In someembodiments, storing includes providing the transaction record at asystem interface for storage remotely. The transaction record mayinclude a bookmark that records an aspect of the enhancement operationincluding a description of a data set, a region, an enhancement, oranother parameter. The bookmark can be retrieved and used to restore aprevious state and to apply previous data sets, region selections,enhancements, and/or parameters to subsequent data sets. The bookmarkmay serve as a label for indexing as described above with respect toFIGS. 3-6 or may include such a label.

Although illustrative embodiments have been shown and described, a widerange of modification, change, and substitution is contemplated in theforegoing disclosure and in some instances, some features of the presentdisclosure may be employed without a corresponding use of the otherfeatures. Further, as described above, the components and extensionsdescribed above in association with the multi-modality processing systemmay be implemented in hardware, software, or a combination of both. Theprocessing systems may be designed to work on any specific architecture.For example, the systems may be executed on a single computer, localarea networks, client-server networks, wide area networks, internets,hand-held and other portable and wireless devices and networks. It isunderstood that such variations may be made in the foregoing withoutdeparting from the scope of the present disclosure. Accordingly, it isappropriate that the appended claims be construed broadly and in amanner consistent with the scope of the present disclosure.

What is claimed is:
 1. A method for navigating medical data in a medicalprocessing system, the method comprising: receiving, by the medicalprocessing system, a reference set of medical data, the medical datacorresponding to a first modality selected from the group of modalitiesconsisting of: FFR, iFR, pressure, flow, IVUS, and OCT; receiving, bythe medical processing system, a navigation command; identifying anenhancement to perform based on the navigation command; identifying asubset of the reference set of medical data based on the navigationcommand; performing, by the medical processing system, the enhancementon the subset; and displaying the enhanced subset.
 2. The method ofclaim 1, wherein the navigation command designates an additional set ofmedical data corresponding to a second modality, the second modalitydifferent from the first modality.
 3. The method of claim 1, wherein thereceiving of the navigation command includes: receiving a user inputsequence by a gesture recognition module of the medical processingsystem; and translating the user input sequence into the navigationcommand.
 4. The method of claim 3, wherein the user input sequenceindicates a first touch-based input concurrent with a second touch-basedinput.
 5. The method of claim 4, wherein the navigation commanddesignates a first boundary for the subset corresponding to the firsttouch-based input and a second boundary for the subset corresponding tothe second touch-based input.
 6. The method of claim 1 furthercomprising: displaying the reference set of medical data on a displaydevice; and updating the displaying of the reference set of medical dataon the display device based on the navigation command.
 7. The method ofclaim 6, wherein the updating of the display includes displaying aboundary of the subset.
 8. The method of claim 6, wherein the updatingof the display includes displaying an icon representing a bookmarklocation.
 9. The method of claim 1 further comprising storing atransaction record of the enhanced subset.
 10. The method of claim 9,wherein the transaction record includes a bookmark configured to restorea previous state and to apply one of a previous data set, a regionselection, an enhancement, and a parameter to a subsequent set ofmedical data.
 11. The method of claim 1, wherein the performing of theenhancement includes performing a single-axis zoom on the subset.
 12. Anapparatus comprising: a non-transitory, computer-readable storage mediumthat stores a plurality of instructions for execution by at least onecomputer processor, wherein the instructions are for: receiving areference set of medical data corresponding to a first modality selectedfrom the group of modalities consisting of: FFR, iFR, pressure, flow,IVUS, and OCT; receiving a navigation command; performing an enhancementon a subset of the reference set as specified by the navigation command;and providing the enhanced subset for display.
 13. The apparatus ofclaim 12, wherein the navigation command designates an additional set ofmedical data corresponding to a second modality, the second modalitydifferent from the first modality.
 14. The apparatus of claim 12,wherein the instructions for the receiving of the navigation commandinclude instructions for: receiving a user input sequence indicating afirst touch-based input concurrent with a second touch-based input; andtranslating the user input sequence into the navigation command, whereinthe navigation command designates a first boundary of the subsetcorresponding to the first touch-based input and a second boundary ofthe subset corresponding to the second touch-based input.
 15. Theapparatus of claim 12, wherein the instructions include furtherinstructions for providing an update for a display of the reference setbased on the navigation command.
 16. The apparatus of claim 15, whereinthe update for the display includes representing a boundary of thesubset.
 17. The apparatus of claim 15, wherein the update for thedisplay includes an icon representing a bookmark location.
 18. Theapparatus of claim 12, wherein the instructions further include storinga transaction record of the performing of the enhancement, thetransaction record including a bookmark configured to restore a previousstate and to apply one or more of a previous data set, a regionselection, an enhancement, and a parameter to a subsequent set ofmedical data.
 19. The apparatus of claim 12, wherein instructions forperforming the enhancement include instructions for performing asingle-axis zoom on the subset.
 20. A medical processing systemcomprising: a medical data interface configured to receive a referenceset of medical data, the medical data corresponding to a first modalityselected from the group of modalities consisting of: FFR, iFR, pressure,flow, IVUS, and OCT; and a navigator engine configured to: receive anavigation command from a controller; identify an enhancement to performbased on the navigation command; identify a subset of the reference setof medical data to enhance based on the navigation command; perform theidentified enhancement on the identified subset; and provide theenhanced subset for display.
 21. The system of claim 20, wherein thenavigation command designates an additional set of medical datacorresponding to a second modality, the second modality different fromthe first modality.
 22. The system of claim 20 further comprising agesture recognition module configured to: receive a user input sequenceindicating a first touch-based input concurrent with a secondtouch-based input; and translate the user input sequence into anavigation command designating a range for the subset having a firstboundary corresponding to the first touch-based input and a secondboundary corresponding to the second touch-based input.
 23. The systemof claim 20, wherein the navigator engine is further configured toprovide an update for a display of the reference set of medical databased on the navigation command.
 24. The system of claim 23, wherein theupdate includes presenting a boundary of the subset.
 25. The system ofclaim 23, wherein the update includes an icon representing a bookmarklocation.
 26. The system of claim 20 further comprising an electronicdatabase, wherein the navigator engine is further configured to store atransaction record of the identified enhancement in the electronicdatabase.
 27. The system of claim 26, wherein the transaction recordincludes a bookmark configured to restore a previous state and to applyone or more of a previous data set, a region selection, an enhancement,and a parameter to a subsequent set of medical data.
 28. The system ofclaim 20, wherein the navigator engine is further configured to performa single-axis zoom on the subset.